Bad Nuts: the Anniversary
by mattTheWriter072
Summary: When an anniversary speech from Mr. Wonka goes completely wrong, Augustus, Charlie, Veruca, Violet, and Mike must find FIVE keys hidden throughout the factory...or else their parents will never be seen again. (2005 version, collab with Gs33022, sequel to "Where All the Bad Nuts Go")
1. The Letter

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory franchise or any characters associated with the franchise. All rights belong to Roald Dahl, Tim Burton, and Warner Bros. Pictures. This is not my intellectual property, and no financial gain is made from this nor will be sought. This is purely for entertainment purposes only.

**Author's note: Hello, readers! You may remember reading one of my stories, "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", which I consider to be my magnum opus. Ever since I asked reviewers if they would like me to write a sequel, the responses have definitely been "yes", and I decided to collaborate with Gs33022 during the process of forming my ideas for the sequel. This story takes place four years after the events of "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", and if you haven't read that story yet, I highly recommend you do so before reading this one. You can find it on my profile. Without further ado, please enjoy our latest ****effort! :)**

**(Note: this chapter was written by Gs33022.)**

Chapter 1 - The Letter

It has been four years since Mr. Wonka invited Charlie Bucket and the rest of the Ticket winners to the factory. Everyone was happy and well, and they got along just fine. Four years ago, however, that wasn't the case.

Mr. Wonka sent out five Golden Tickets which were hidden under five ordinary Wonka Bars. Having possession of one Golden Ticket allowed the winner a tour of Mr. Wonka's factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate. The first four Tickets were found by Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous boy who only thought of eating; Veruca Salt, a spoiled brat who desired everything; Violet Beauregarde, a perpetual gum-chewer, as well as a karate expert who won hundreds of trophies and claimed herself to always be a winner; the fourth Golden Ticket was found by Mike Teavee, a boy obsessed with television, science, and video games, who tried to always act smart like he knew everything.

The fifth Ticket was found by a kind boy named Charlie Bucket. Together, the five of them went in for a tour of the factory, but Augustus and Violet suddenly got eliminated from the tour. When it came to Veruca, a rather…_strange_ event happened.

Mr. Wonka took the remaining group members, Veruca and her father; Mike and her father, and Charlie and his Grandpa Joe-to the Nut Sorting Room, a blue and white room where he contained special squirrels dedicated to shelling the nuts out of the walnut shells. Veruca's spoiled personality got the best of her, and the squirrels were just about to toss her down the chute…

...when Charlie _rushed_ down by Mr. Wonka's squirrel arena and attempted to save her! However, it wasn't as easy as it sounded. The squirrels tried to attack Charlie, but with some help from Mike and his father, Charlie succeeded. After this, Mike got eliminated-but it wasn't over yet. In order to _truly_ determine Mr. Wonka's next heir, the famous chocolatier hid a key in one of his factory rooms, and the now five children were tasked with finding it. That wasn't the worst of it for the poor children, though. They got separated from their relatives, forcing the five of them to put aside their flaws and work together. To put a long story short...they succeeded!

Mr. Wonka then put Charlie through a test. He told Charlie that he and his family could move into the factory, but the other children had to go home- even Veruca, whom he had developed a crush on. Charlie Bucket stated that he would not be Mr. Wonka's heir unless the other children would be allowed to stay as well. Mr. Wonka then revealed a plot twist- it was all a test, dedicated to showcasing Charlie's integrity!

As a result, the five children, along with their parents, moved into the factory together, and all was well. Four years later, however, things would begin to _once again_ become a little strange..

~Charlie's POV~

I slowly opened my eyes. I looked around my environment, and slowly remembered where I was. I was on the top floor of my replica house that Mr. Wonka had built for us a few years ago. I looked around thoughtfully, and seeing through the roof the walls of the Chocolate Room, and I heard the peaceful sound of the chocolate waterfall, as well as the _suck-suck-sucking_ of the pipes as they did their work, sucking up the chocolate and carrying it away, all over the factory.

I got out of my bed and walked down the stairs to my grandparents' room. I saw that Grandpa Joe was wide awake, and Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George, and Grandma Georgina were just starting to wake up. I saw my mother and father gripping some plates from our cupboards and placing them onto a large table by my grandparents' bed. While this was happening, my four grandparents started to get themselves out of bed as well, and they helped my parents as well. I had no clue as to what was going on at the moment.

"What's happening?" I asked to my family from the top of the stairs. "Is something the matter?"

"Why, son, tell me you haven't forgotten!" Mr. Bucket, my father, laughed happily.

"Forgotten what?" I asked, genuinely confused.

"It's the anniversary of the factory tour!" my mother smiled. "We're helping to prepare the celebration!"

"I even took a day off work to help!" my father grinned. "And guess what? It's free, too! My boss said, 'Anything for you, my friend! You helped my company, so it's high-time that I repay you! As far as I'm concerned, you can take off as many days as you need!'"

"That's wonderful, dad!" I exclaimed happily.

I suddenly remembered. Today was the day! It was four years since my original tour with Mr. Wonka and my grandfather! How could I have forgotten such a special day?!

I rushed back up the stairs of my replica home and got dressed. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, blew my nose, and for goodness sakes, certainly I got all the mud off my pants! I rushed back downstairs past my family, and went to my mailbox by my replica house. I opened it, and there was a single, white envelope in it. It was addressed to me, and it was from none other than my mentor, Mr. Willy Wonka himself. I walked back inside my house, sat down at the table, and began to read the letter out loud as my family began to gather around me.

_Dear Charlie Bucket:_

_It is my great pleasure to send you this humble letter. As you may know, it is the fourth anniversary of my original factory tour that I held with you, Augustus, Veruca, Violet, and Mike (who should be receiving their letters shortly as well). To celebrate, I've concocted many surprises throughout the day beyond your wildest imagination. In your best dreams you could not imagine the marvellous surprises that await you! To start, I will be giving a speech right here in the Chocolate Room at 10 am sharp. I hope to see you there!_

_I shake you warmly by the hand,_

_Mr. Willy Wonka_

I folded the letter back up and put it back in the envelope. My family all stared at me with warm, supportive smiles, and I smiled back.

_I wonder what Mr. Wonka means by "surprises"_, I thought. _After all, I have seen everything there is to see with Mr. Wonka...or _have_ I?_

**Author's note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of our story! Please feel free to review, and as always, stay tuned for more! :)**


	2. Mr Ritchie and the Anniversary

Chapter 2 - Mr. Ritchie and the Anniversary

**Author's note: I'm back, everyone! The next chapter is here, but first, let's get to your reviews.**

**JOHNHAMMOND1993, I had your request listed on my profile for quite a long time, actually. I'll still have to think of the name. As for whether or not Charlie will act on his crush on Veruca, you'll just have to wait and see! ;)**

**Guest, the update is here right now! On with the story!**

**(Note: this chapter was written by Gs33022.)**

Ten o' clock came before I knew it. I heard a clock strike ten outside the cold, wintry world, and on cue, me and my family came out of our house replica as soon as we heard the noise. I saw that Augustus, Veruca, Violet, and Mike were already there, along with their respective guardians, and Mr. Willy Wonka was adjusting a small microphone on a tall wooden podium, and he had his cue cards on it as well. I felt the slight urge to check on them, but that urge did not last long. _What's an uplifting speech if I were to already know the text of it?_ I asked myself. Above the podium, there was a colorful rainbow ribbon, as well as letters that spelled out, "FOURTH ANNIVERSARY." Oompa-Loompas were also working throughout the Chocolate Room, minding their own business. I stood by the other children, and I saw their guardians, excluding my family, gathering by Mr. Wonka and the podium.

Augustus Gloop was dressed in an orange-striped shirt, and he had a Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight in his hands-or, at least, that's what I originally thought. He had two bars in his hands, but I paid no attention to this, and minded my own business. Suddenly, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Augustus Gloop, and he was staring at me with a regretful look.

"Vou know," Augustus Gloop said to me, "I veel really bad for what I did to you at the original tour," he said, "so, I thought vhat I vould give you this."

He handed me his second Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight!

"A-are you sure, Augustus?" I asked him curiously.

"Ov course," Augustus said to me. "Vou were so nice to me, but I vas mean back. That is not how friends should be."

"I...I just don't know what to say!" I stammered. Augustus looked at me as my mouth was open like a fish out of water.

I felt another tap on my shoulder, and it was Violet Beauregarde. She was dressed in a pink track suit and blue crocs, and she had her blonde hair tied into a bun.

"I agree with Augustus," Violet smiled at me. "You're not a loser. You're a winner."

"Thanks," I smiled back.

I felt someone grab my hand, but at this point, I could recognize her skin texture anywhere. It was none other than my girlf-er, love-er, excuse me, best friend, Veruca Salt. I looked back at her and smiled sweetly, and that made her grip me tighter. She was blushing at me, and she had a lovesick grin on her face. She was coincidentally wearing the same types of clothes that she originally wore four years prior on Mr. Wonka's original tour.  
"What do you think Mr. Wonka's surprise will be?" Veruca blushed at me.

"Honestly, I have no clue," I responded truthfully. "He's kept it a secret from even me."

"Knowing him, it could be anything," Mike Teavee interrupted, pushing his way between the two of us. He was wearing a black Call of Duty shirt, along with green and brown camo-patterned pants.

"Mike, can't you see that we're-?" Veruca said angrily, but I gently grabbed her arm, and she stared at me, confused.

"It's okay, Veruca," I responded.

"But Charlie, he-!" Veruca began, but she was cut off by the sound of microphone feedback, and Mr. Wonka clearing his throat and tapping its top.

"It's beginning!" I remarked happily, as my father placed both of his hands on my shoulders and we all faced him, eager to hear what he had to say.

We saw Mr. Wonka picking up his pile of cue cards, and, speaking into the microphone, he began to read:

_Dear Visitors:_

_Er, dear friends, sorry about that._

This remark caused all of us to chuckle lightly.

_It is my great pleasure to announce that today is the four-year anniversary of our original tour!_

We all clapped happily, and a few of us even let out whistles.

_I've prepared many special surprises that you couldn't even imagine in your wildest dreams! To begin, we will start by-_

Suddenly, I saw that the Chocolate Room's lights began to flicker, and everyone began to scream in panic, even our guardians!

"Stay calm, everyone!" I said soothingly. "Stay calm!"

This didn't work one bit. As the lights began to flicker more and more, everyone began to run away, all over the room, except my family. They just stood where they were before the speech began, completely confused at what was going on around them.

"Oof!" my mother groaned in pain, falling on the ground as one of the other guardians bumped into her.

"CHARLIE!" my mother screamed in fear as the lights shut completely off.

"MOTHER!" I shouted in fear, feeling around for her, but feeling nothing. I abruptly felt myself bumping into a small body, most likely Augustus, Violet, Veruca, or Mike, but I didn't know who.

I suddenly tripped, and as soon as I did, the lights came back on. I noticed that I was completely tangled up with Augustus, Violet, Veruca, and Mike, and my entire body was in pain. A few minutes later, we began to untangle ourselves, and we carefully looked around the Chocolate Room. We were absolutely shocked.

Everyone was gone, and a mess was left behind. The ribbon message was completely destroyed, and the podium was tipped over.

"W-what happened?!" Veruca Salt exclaimed. "Everyone's gone!"

"Right, Miss Obvious," Mike Teavee remarked.

"Mike," Violet responded, "this is a serious situation. Please save your remarks for later, okay?"

"Whatever you say," Mike Teavee responded.

We all looked around the Chocolate Room together, and not even a single Oompa-Loompa was left in here. It was as if a tornado came and ripped everything apart. I kept walking around and hunting, and all I found was my Grandpa Joe's glasses. I looked at them, and I couldn't help but cry. Tears were falling down my face, which was beginning to turn red. Once more, I felt someone grip my shoulder.

"DAD-?!" I yelled instinctively, turning around, but it was actually Veruca Salt.

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry for scaring you, Charlie!" she begged.

"It's okay," I responded, my head down sadly.

"Don't you worry!" Veruca said encouragingly, trying to cheer me up. "We'll find them, I promise you that!"

Suddenly, a voice boomed throughout the Chocolate Room.

"Who's there?!" I called out.

"This is Mr. Ritchie speaking!" the voice boomed, echoing around the Chocolate Room. I noticed that the source of the voice was seemingly coming from high up in the ceiling of the Chocolate Room. The voice continued speaking. "If you ever want to see your guardians again, you must find not one, but _five_ keys hidden throughout the factory! If you don't find all of the keys by sunset, they will be gone…_forever_."

**Author's note: Whoa-oa! What do you think will happen next?! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, feel free to review, and stay tuned for more!**

**I also have an important announcement to make: You may have noticed that a new story called "The Speedy Chocolatier Showdown" recently appeared in my list of upcoming stories. It will be my first crossover story, involving characters from the CatCF universe and the Sonic the Hedgehog universe! They will take part in a Grand Prix, and it will be a race they'll never forget! You can expect the first chapter of that story to be published in a day or two. :D**


	3. Splitting Up

Chapter 3 - Splitting Up

**Author's note: Hello, dear readers! It's been a long time coming, but the third chapter of the sequel to "Where All the Bad Nuts Go" is here at last! ****I think it might be interesting for you all to note that, while we were (and still are, of course) developing this story, Mr. Ritchie was originally going to leave a note on the ground in the Chocolate Room instead of speaking through the loudspeaker in the Chocolate Room as in the final, published product. Whether this change will hint something or not...for now, just use your imaginations, everyone. ;) Now, it's response time!**

**JOHNHAMMOND1993, yes, there will be actual keys this time. Where they're hidden, on the other hand...only Gs33022 and I know! :D**

**Guest, wait no longer! The update is here!**

**Memelimore, I've been churning out updates and new stories more often than I have in quite a while, and I hope I can keep the writing machine well-oiled for everyone's reading pleasure!**

**XXCandyLoverXX, of course I remember your undying devotion and enthusiasm when you read and reviewed every chapter of ******"Where All the Bad Nuts Go". As for the second half of your review, just refer to my response to JOHNHAMMOND1993. Now, on with the story!  
****

****(Note: this chapter was written by me.)****

_Forever...forever...forever.._.that single word resonated in my skull as we all stared at each other, dumbfounded.

"_Five_ keys?" Augustus blurted out.

"That's what Mr. Ritchie said," Mike calmly replied. "I have a feeling that we'll be in for yet another scavenger hunt, like what we did the day of the tour."

"Finding one key was hard enough," Veruca muttered. "Never mind five."

"How are we going to go about this?" I asked the rest of the group.

"Let's split up, gang!" Mike proclaimed, only to have Violet, Veruca, and Augustus look at him weirdly. "So what? I used to watch that show all the time as a kid!" There were several seconds of silence. "Now, let's begin! Violet and Augustus, you can stay with me. Charlie and Veruca, you're on your own."

"I'm okay with that," I replied, nodding slightly. "Good luck!"

"Danke," Augustus responded as the trio began to cross a long, narrow bridge that was positioned right in front of the roaring nine-story chocolate waterfall. I still remember when we crossed that bridge for the very first time, during the tour back in 2005.

_"The waterfall is most important," Mr. Wonka told us all as I breathed in the wonderful scent of melted chocolate. "Mixes the chocolate, churns it up, makes it light and frothy. By the way, no other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall, my dear children. And you can take that to the bank!"_

"Charlie?" a distant voice said as the mental image of Mr. Wonka slowly began to disappear, giving way to reality. "Charlie!"

It was Veruca.

"Oh, sorry," I apologized. "I just had a sort of flashback."

Veruca looked at me with an alarmed expression on her face. "A flashback? Not like the kind of flashbacks tha—"

"No, not like Mr. Wonka's flashbacks," I quickly rebutted. "It was a good one. Now, let's go start our mission, shall we?"

"Right!" Veruca said with determination. Together, we walked across the meadow and over the bridge that crossed the chocolate river before approaching the infamous tunnel at the end of the Chocolate Room.

"Charlie, do you think we should go the same way we did before?" Veruca inquired, pointing to a narrow walkway beside the chocolate river. There was a small door just off to the right, which via a long corridor, led straight to the room where the Wonka Bars were being made.

"I think that would be a great idea," I replied as we made our way closer to the edge of the river; the bright, cheery atmosphere of the Chocolate Room slowly giving way to the eerie darkness of the tunnel. Just beyond that was the gigantic water slide/rapids ride (or should I say chocolate slide?) that led to the cream rooms, and then to the Inventing Room before going even _further_ underground. Once we reached the door, Veruca walked ahead of me and swung it open.

"Go on," she prompted.

I shook my head. "No, ladies first."

"You're too kind, Charlie," Veruca said as she stepped over the threshold. "_Honestly_."

"Veruca, it's how I was raised," I reminded the British girl as I followed her into a long, straight corridor which seemed to stretch on for miles. In stark contrast to the rest of the factory, this corridor looked rather bare and utilitarian. The floor and walls were made out of concrete, and a series of LED's on the ceiling bathed the area in a soft blue light. "Remember, my whole family lived in extreme poverty before the Golden Ticket contest."

"Well, of _course_ I remember," Veruca replied as we continued walking along, eventually deciding to hold each other's hand. "How could I forget the fact that your house looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book?"

"Heh, very funny," I replied, half-sincerely and half-sarcastically.

"Wait, I just realized something," Veruca said. "One thing I _didn't_ see...was your model of the factory that you made using toothpaste caps." My jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Really? I didn't show it to you yet?! Oh my gosh, that was one of my favorite projects from my childhood! I'll show it to you as soon as our mission is over."

"Uh, Charlie," Veruca said uncertainly, "if you don't recall, the last time we searched for a key, it ended way past midnight, and it wasn't even a real key to begin with."

"Ha, no doubt!" I said, laughing. "How could I possibly forget? That was how we became friends—no, _best_ friends—in the first place!"

"The point is," Veruca continued, "we won't be seeing your factory anytime soon, so don't assume we'll be done and through just like that. Now, let's get—"

Without warning, the floor suddenly dropped out from beneath our feet, sending us down a long, unexpected slide. It happened so fast that we didn't even have time to scream.

Colorful lights, music, and lots of twists and turns accompanied us during the ride, and it came as a real surprise when the slide abruptly ended in a pitch-black room.

"Oof!" I moaned as I landed uncomfortably on the floor. I heard a shriek from behind, and Veruca landed right on top of me.

"That Wonka!" Veruca shouted. "Couldn't he have done so much as warn us beforehand? I mean, why did he have to put a trapdoor _there_, of all places?"

"Well, he's no ordinary man," I said while gasping for air, since Veruca was still on top of me and we weighed about the same. "But first, can you...get off of me, please?"

"Oh! Sorry," Veruca apologized as she slowly got back onto her feet, and I did the same immediately afterward. "Where...where the bloody hell are we?"

"I'm afraid I don't know," I replied, looking around in confusion. All I could see was total darkness, and nothing else.

"Well, _you're_ Wonka's heir," Veruca said assertively. "I thought you'd have known the layout of the entire factory by now!"

"Well, I _thought_ I did...up until now, that is."

"Go figure," Veruca muttered. I was certain she was rolling her eyes at me right now. "I can't see a bloody thing, anyway." Suddenly, an idea dawned on me.

"You have your phone on you, right?" I asked Veruca. "Don't you?"

"Of course I do," she replied. "It should be _somewhere_ in here," she added, and I heard her frantically rummaging through her purse. "Ah, here it is," she said a few seconds later. She was just about to activate the flashlight when a soft blue light shimmered into existence about twenty feet ahead, revealing a massive room that was filled with glowing blue cubes. Some of them appeared to be small enough to fit in my hand, and others were as big as a house. There were cubes on the floor, walls, and ceiling, and even some that were floating in midair!

"This is incredible!" I said, astonished at the surreal landscape before me. "I've never been in this part of the factory before."

As we walked further into this new area, Veruca reached her hand out to touch one of the floating cubes. As she did so, the entire surface of the cube rippled as if it was made of gelatin. It also changed color, gradually morphing from blue to a soft shade of pink. I rested my hand on one of the larger cubes on the floor, and I felt its entire surface begin to pulsate with a steady rhythm. It didn't take long before I realized that the cube was pulsating along to my own heartbeat.

"Do you think that these cubes mean something?" Veruca asked me. She took the floating cube with both of her hands and it slowly began to turn vermillon, and then scarlet.

I stared at my own cube, and I couldn't help but notice that it was turning scarlet as well. Eventually, it turned back to its regular shade of blue, but when I looked at Veruca's cube...it wasn't a cube anymore. It was now a sphere, and to my amazement, my own face was being projected from within it!

"Whoa," I whispered, barely loud enough for Veruca to hear. "Let me try one." I grabbed one of the floating cubes, and it slowly morphed into a sphere, just like the one Veruca was holding. An image formed within mine, and my heart began to race, half-hoping and half-dreading that I would see Veruca's face from within, but instead, I saw the face of my grandpa Joe.

"I wonder what these even are," I said as I let go of my sphere. Like a rubber band, the sphere flew right out of my grasp and stopped exactly where it was before, and it transformed back into a floating blue cube. Veruca's sphere did the exact same thing once she let go of hers. "Do you think they show our secrets or something?"

"I highly doubt that," Veruca replied. "Everyone knows that Grandpa Joe is the one you've been closest to for the longest time, so it can't be about your secrets. Your face showed up in mine, so maybe it reveals who you admire most?"

"We'll just have to ask Mr. Wonka later," I said, smiling at her. "We've got to get moving."

_WILLY WONKA! WILLY WONKA! THE AMAZING CHOCOLATIER!_

Veruca shrieked, and I quickly grabbed her hand. "Relax, Veruca. It's just my phone."

She gave me an incredulous look. "Why'd you tell me to take out _my_ phone, then?"

"My battery's only at nine percent," I calmly replied as the welcome song continued blaring from my iPhone. I took the device out of my pocket and answered it. "Hello?" No response. "Hello!" Still no response. Without warning, the call was disconnected. "That was definitely strange..."

**Author's note: I hope this chapter was worth the wait! It's also my birthday today, and I felt that now would be the perfect time to update! :D**

**Fun fact, i****n "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", XXCandyLoverXX suggested that Charlie and Veruca should go through a sort of obstacle course. I was thinking of making it more like a funhouse (a nod to the 1971 movie), and in fact, that WAS what I was going to do at first before I came up with the current plot that you know about. Thus, I thought it would be fun to implement that scrapped idea into this story instead!  
**

**Who do you think the mysterious caller was? What do you predict will happen to Charlie and Veruca next? Who is this "Mr. Ritchie"? Only Gs33022 and I know, so as for you guys...stay tuned! :)**


	4. A WONDERful Encounter

Chapter 4 - A WONDERful Encounter

**Author's note: Hello, dear readers! We're back with another chapter, but first, it's response time!**

**XXCandyLoverXX, I promise this story will keep you engaged until the very end! As for whether or not they'll end up meeting Mr. Ritchie...well, there's one way to find out! Keep on reading! ;)**

**JOHNHAMMOND1993, I clearly see the resemblance between Wilkinson and Slugworth. I'm sure his portrayal was an homage to the 1971 movie.**

**Turrislucidus, you can count on there being more room-descriptions-a-plenty over the course of this story! It would be interesting to know more about you thought of the cubes, though. :D**

**Guest # 1, that's a very good question! Here's my top ten list: (1) 2005 Mike, (2) 2005 Violet, (3) 2005 Veruca, (4) 1971 Veruca, (5) 1971 Mike, (6) 2005 Charlie, (7) 1971 Violet, (8) 1971 Charlie, (9), 2005 Augustus, and (10) 1971 Augustus. Thanks for asking! :D  
**

**MrWonkyWonka, hmmm...maybe, but I'll leave the inclusion of the Nostalgia Room entirely up to Gs33022, and let him decide whether or not it should be included.**

**Guest # 2, those are some good room suggestions! I will DEFINITELY include the "For Your Enemies" room in this story. I might even dedicate an entire chapter just for it! By the way, the zombie candy idea is amazing, and I'll give you credit once I get around to it. **

**Guest # 3, Illusionary ice cream, you say? I'll think about including it in a later chapter. Now, on with the story!  
**

**(Note: this chapter was written by me, although credit goes to Gs33022 for most of the rooms featured here.)**

"Who was that?" Veruca inquired as I put my iPhone back in my pocket. "_Someone's_ obviously got your number."

"Honestly, I have no clue," I replied. "I know for sure it wasn't Mr. Wonka, because he'd never hang up on me like that. Now let's get going, shall we?"

Together, we marched further into the vast field of glowing blue cubes, not once looking back. The cubes blocked our view due to their uneven arrangement, so we had no way to tell when and where it would end. However, as we continued onward, the scenery began to change from blue cubes to orange cylinders, red pyramids, and green dodecahedrons. It wasn't long before we began walking past life-sized models of cars, motorcycles, buses, and even a jumbo jet!

"Too bad I don't see any way to get in," Veruca lamented, pointing upwards at the massive plane. "There's no sign of a door or anything. Can you imagine what it would look like if we could go inside? One of the keys could very well have been hidden inside it! Maybe there's a secret hatch on top or something...?"

"Well, it seems like it's only made to look like an airplane," I said. "I can imagine that it is hollow inside, though, so who knows?"

Veruca shrugged. "Eh, we'll just leave it to Mike to figure it out. As far as I know, he can solve almost any problem."

Just as I was about to respond, a small, furry rodent skittered across the ground, making a beeline straight towards Veruca.

"AAAAAAAHHH! SQUIRREL!" Veruca screamed at the top of her lungs. "Shoo! Get it away from me, Charlie!"

"Veruca, it's only a chipmunk," I said in a feeble attempt to console her. I crouched down and attempted to beckon the animal towards me with encouraging words and finger movements, but he decided to turn around and dash out of sight. "See? He's gone."

"Wha...what would a chipmunk be doing inside the factory?!" Veruca spluttered, still trembling with fright.

"Who knows, maybe he could be somebody's pet," I said, trying to brighten the mood.

"Right, like _that_ helps," Veruca replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. She took a quick breath. "Where are we going from here?"

"As Mr. Wonka would say, _onward_!" I replied with a grin. Veruca let out a loud sigh, and we resumed our forward progress.

After a half-hour of wandering around the sculpture room, as well as a short ascent via an escalator made from construction-grade Jello (I told Veruca that these escalators were designed to address the safety concerns present in normal escalators), we finally found the exit. We stopped in front of a large, round door with no handle, and a label above it read: "THE CORRIDOR OF MAGIC AND WONDER (MAGICDOOR)" in glowing purple letters. I couldn't help but laugh as I read the label.

"Magicdoor?" I said in between chuckles. "Oh, Mr. Wonka, you _never_ fail to amuse anyone!"

Veruca glanced at me, then directed her gaze back to the glowing label. "Is that supposed to mean 'magic door', or is it some weird mashup of 'magic' and 'corridor'?"

"There's only one way to find out," I responded, winking at her. "If it's a magic door...hmmm...OPEN SESAME!" We stood there in silence, eagerly waiting for something to happen...but the door didn't budge whatsoever. Suddenly, an idea came to me. "Wait! Veruca, I think I know what to do, but I'm afraid we may need the help of Mike, Violet, and Augustus."

"What's your plan?" the British brunette inquired.

"Well, remember what we did last time in the Chocolate Room, after we finished our mission?"

"We lined up beside each other in the same order as when we stood outside the factory's gates before the tour," Veruca answered. "And we said..."

"OPEN THE DOORS!" we shouted at the same time. Again, there was nothing but silence for several seconds, and the door didn't move an inch.

"Maybe we _will_ have to wait for them," I said, "unless I can figure out how to manually open it. I don't see a handle...maybe it's touch-sensitive?" I walked right up to the door, and just as I was about to touch it, my outstretched hand broke through the door, as if it wasn't even there. _This reminds me of when I grabbed that Wonka Bar from the TV during the tour_, I thought. I looked back at Veruca, who was gaping in astonishment. I was certain she was thinking of the exact same event, since she had visited the Television Room along with me and Mike four years ago.

"Should we...just try walking through it and see what happens?" Veruca asked me several seconds later.

"It's worth a shot," I said encouragingly. "Here goes!" Together, we walked straight through the door itself as if we were ghosts. It was all an illusion!

"Is this supposed to be a funhouse or something?!" Veruca blurted out.

"Why, having fun?" was my witty response. "I guess that's what he meant by 'magicdoor', heheheh!" Veruca responded with a small scowl. We quickly returned to the task at hand, and we started to look around the corridor, which featured several large, round doors that branched off of both sides. "Let's check out the first door on our left," I suggested, pointing towards a door that was labeled: "HOT ICE CUBES". I opened the door and let Veruca enter first.

We entered a hot, steamy room where Oompa-Loompas wearing white lab coats, protective goggles, and extremely thick gloves wielded giant steel tongs that were at least ten feet in length. Enormous iron pots were arranged in clusters throughout the room, and they were heated with natural gas burners. The Oompa-Loompas were using their tongs to carefully lift the hot ice cubes out of the pots, and from there, they walked through a large doorway into what was called the "hot refrigerator".

"It's too dangerous to get anywhere near those pots," I said to Veruca. "Plus, we really should be wearing heat suits in here, because I'm starting to sweat like mad. Let's carry on."

The next door along the way was labeled: "WEIRD LOLLIPOPS". In this room, an army of Oompa-Loompas were scurrying around a large machine that looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. One of the Oompa-Loompas used a front-end loader to dump a whole bunch of different ingredients of all shapes and sizes into the machine's hopper, causing loud mechanical noises to drown out every other sound. The machine whirred, huffed, puffed, and jiggled for a while, until several kinds of strange-looking lollipops emerged, landing on one of several different conveyor belts. Some of them were glowing, others were changing colors at random every few seconds, and there was even a sentient variety of lollipops with laughing faces on them (the conveyor they were on was labeled "LOLlipops", much to my amusement).

Veruca suddenly burst into peals of laughter. "LOLlipops! Oh, that's a good one!" she cried in amusement. "Now we'd just better hope the key didn't get tossed into the machine."

"And become a key lime flavored lollipop?" I joked. "Anyway, I think we'd better check out some more rooms in this corridor."

We continued walking for about fifty feet until we reached two rooms that were located across from each other, on both sides of the corridor. The room to my left displayed "VOLCANOES FOR TOASTING MARSHMALLOWS" on its door, and the other read "HEART-SHAPED LUNGS".

"What the heck?" Veruca muttered in disgust. "With a name like _that_, they don't seem appetizing at all."

"Veruca, we'd better split up momentarily," I suggested. "I'll check out the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room, and you can check out the Heart-Shaped Lungs room. Is that good with you?"

"Let's do it," Veruca affirmed, and we entered our respective rooms to continue the search.

~Veruca's POV~

The Heart-Shaped Lungs room was very dark; not to the point of being pitch-black, but still dark enough that I could only make out shadows of most of the room's features. There appeared to be small brick houses spaced evenly throughout the area, with creepy silhouettes in the windows, and on their front lawns were a number of glowing Jack-O-lanterns that were nestled within thick, tangled green vines. Milling throughout the room were dozens of Oompa-Loompas dressed up in various Halloween costumes, and they were walking from house to house with large boxes in their hands, as if they were trick-or-treating. At the front door of each house, a robotic arm dropped candies into the boxes the Oompa-Loompas were carrying. I wasn't able to get a good look at the boxes, but I was able to discern the label, which read "Heart-Shaped Lungs: a limited-edition Halloween candy for only the most daring souls!" To top it all off, songs like "Monster Mash", "Thriller", the Ghostbusters theme, and "The Purple People Eater" reverberated throughout the room. I tried my best to focus on finding the first of the five elusive keys, but I was never one to enjoy Halloween, since scary things like ghosts, monsters, and haunted houses always made me cringe ever since I was a little girl.

Suddenly, something flashed out of the corner of my eye. It was a shadow of a man, and a breeze of wind rushed past me as the shadow disappeared with superhuman speed. There was someone in the room with me!

"C-Charlie?" I stammered as I frantically tried to look for the mysterious person, forgetting that my best friend was in a completely different room. I was about to hurry out of the room when I noticed a piece of paper lying on the ground. I picked it up with my hands to examine it. The scrawly handwriting on the note read, "WHO AM I? WELL, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE…! SIGNED, MR. RITCHIE".

~Charlie's POV~

A wave of searing heat washed over me as soon as I set foot in the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room. There were towering, prehistoric-looking palm trees all around, partially blocking the view of the room's ceiling, which was designed to mimick a sunset. The other major source of light came from the reddish glow of five massive volcanoes. Five cranes that were being operated by Oompa-Loompas towered into the air, and skewer-like attachments at the end of each boom were slowly rotating bus-sized marshmallows above the mouths of each volcano. Every three minutes, the floor rumbled beneath our feet, and a towering explosion of hot raspberry icing erupted from the volcanoes in a fiery spectacle. The red-hot icing slowly flowed down the sides of each volcano before pooling onto a rotating conveyor system, which carried it towards a row of cutting blades that sliced it into narrow, continuous strips. After that, another conveyor belt carried the strips into another room, which was labeled: "LAVA LICORICE".

_It's_ extremely _hot in here,_ I noted. _Have I even tried Lava Licorice before? Somehow, I don't think so...but with all the thousands of different candies this factory produces, I just might have forgotten about them. _Curious, I began walking down a stone path that was semi-hidden by large ferns, and I soon reached a large window that provided a view of the room where the Lava Licorice was being cooled, slightly hardened, and cut up into small, individual licorice strips. Suddenly, I heard a trio of knocks on the window, but as I looked around for the source of the sound, there was no sign of anyone there...except for a single adult-sized handprint on the glass.

"Who's there?!" I shouted. "Show yourself!"

I quickly scanned the room to see if I could find the intruder, only to discover a note that was stuck to the wall. After reading it, I couldn't help but ponder: _who is this Mr. Ritchie? Why, and HOW, did everyone's families disappear so fast? Was he the one who left the handprint on the glass...?_

"I'd better let Veruca know about what happened," I said aloud as I ran back towards the corridor. Once I reached the door, I proceeded to turn the handle, only to find out that it wouldn't even budge. "It's locked! Somebody, help!"

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared on the door, and it was that of a tall, slim man. I froze in place as the shadow came closer, and closer, and closer...

**Author's note: DUM DUM DUMMM! How's _that_ for an ending? Feel free to review and suggest more rooms you'd like to see, and as always, please stay tuned for the next chapter! :D**


	5. Danger in the Forest

Chapter 5 - Danger in the Forest

**Author's note: Hello, readers! I bet you didn't expect to see a new chapter so soon, eh? I'll address your reviews now.**

**XXCandyLoverXX, I believe you suggested the Heart-Shaped Lungs room in a review of "Next in Line". Thanks for the compliments.**

**Guest # 1, round candies that look square do seem interesting... *scratches beard* I'll think about it.**

**Guest # 2, a few of those rooms have already been explored, and I may consider including some more, but keep in mind that a lot of those room titles were jokes made by the production designers and were never meant to be taken seriously, not to mention they're just really weird, even by Wonka standards.**

**DontCallMeGussie, unlike "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", there will be some scenes from Augustus' POV in this chapter. Now, on with the story!**

**(Note: this chapter was written by Gs33022.)**

~Mike's POV~

Augustus, Violet, and I took one last look at Charlie and Veruca.

"Good luck!" I heard Charlie shout behind us as we continued walking across the large grassy bridge of the Chocolate Room.

"Where should we go next?" Violet asked me, gripping my hand.

"There," I pointed, looking at a door at the opposite end where Charlie and Veruca were going. It said, "ILLUSIONARY ICE CREAM."

"Ich liebe Eis," Augustus Gloop remarked, beginning to fast-walk towards the room.

"What did he say?" Violet asked, looking at me with a confused expression on her face.

"He said, 'I love ice cream,'" I responded.

I sighed.

"Some people just never change, do they?" I groaned.

"Mike, a little occasional ice cream never hurt anyone," Violet responded. "Lighten up!"

"Ice cream is for babies," I said with a serious expression on my face.

"I said lighten up," Violet responded once more, bumping me lightly with her elbow. "You know, you can be such a party pooper at times!"

"Can not," I scowled.

"Can too," she said sternly back to me.

"Can _not_," I scowled back a little louder.

"Please, just calm down about Augustus," Violet said softly to me.

"Fine," I responded. "But only for you."

~Augustus' POV~

I opened zee door, and I zaw ginormous mountains of zoft, fluffy ice cream everywhere! Zey had to pe at least tventy-feet tall per flavor, including chocolate, vanilla, tvist und more!

"Look at all zee ice cream," I zaid in ein trance-like schtate, mein mouth peginning to vater. Arh! I couldn't take it anymore. I looked at zee bile of chocolate ice cream, und chumbed tovards it. Arh! As zoon as I did, I felt mein body going zhrough zee ice cream and hitting a hard, metal floor. I could zee nothing. Arh! It vas extremely dark.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. "Zomepody help me!"

I heard footsteps valking towards me as soon as I cried out, und Violet's voice cried out loudly, "Augustus?! Are you okay?!"

"I'm fine!" I answered. "Chust get me out of here!"

I felt her hand reach for me.

"Grab hold!" Violet's voice commanded.

I reached towards zee hand, und in a matter of minutes, I vas free, und able to zee light once again.

"Darn it, Vonka!" I cried out. "Ein brocheczion?! Zeriously?!"

I heard Mike sigh once again.

"He's saying, 'A projection?! Seriously?!''

He looked at me.

"That's why this room is called, 'Illusionary Ice Cream,'" Mike answered sternly. "But that's something a glutton like you wouldn't understand."

"Mike, be quiet," Violet told him. "Let loose, and stop being so cruel all the time."

"I'm not," he answered. "I'm just stating the truth."

I attempted to change zee subject.

"Can ve bleaze ko on to zee next room?" I asked. "It's Hopffious zat zere's kein key here."

As ve moved furzher along, I pointed to a door zat zaid, "COLD BEACHES."

"Alright, Augustus," Violet answered, gripping Mike's hand. "Let's go."

~Violet's POV~

The three of us opened the door to the Cold Beaches room, and an astounding sight awaited us. In this room, there was a gigantic light shining down from the ceiling. Somehow, though, it was freezing cold, and it looked _exactly_ like a tropical beach! There were palm trees with what looked like coconuts on them, and lifeguard towers, and everything else that you'd expect from a tropical beach!

I looked at one of the palm trees and swiped my finger across it, and licked it.

"Hey look, everyone!" I called out. "This palm tree 'trunk' is actually chocolate ice cream!"

At the left side of the room there was blue "water" (which we later discovered was made out of blueberry ice cream). We saw pink, pointy fins slicing through it, and one even jumped up, showing us that it was a _shark_! It chomped the air, then landed back down in the water.

"Ja wirklich?" Augustus asked.

"He means, 'Really?'" Mike responded before I could say anything.

"Come look!" I said.

Mike swiped his finger on the trunk like I did before.

"She's right," he said out loud. "Everything in this room must be made out of ice cream. That must be why this room is called, 'Cold Beaches.'"

I looked, and Augustus Gloop got the message. He was climbing on one of the palm trees, trying to reach for a leaf.

"Be careful, Augustus!" I called out. "You wouldn't want to fall in with the sharks!"

As soon as I said this, Augustus lost his grip, and was holding onto a leaf for his life so he wouldn't get hurt by the pink sharks.

I thought fast. I used my flexibility to slice through the air quickly, and I grabbed Augustus right before a shark chomped at him!

"Danke, Violet!" Augustus told me.

I knew what this word meant. "Danke" means, "Thanks" in German.

"You're welcome, Augustus," I answered. "Next time, be careful."

"Let's move on to the next room," Mike suggested, pointing to a door that said, "FUDGE FOREST."

"Let's go," I said, waiting for Augustus to catch up.

We regrouped by the door, and saw a note on the Fudge Forest's door. It read,

_"There is a key in this room._  
_But to find it, you'll need to escape a trap of doom._  
_To find it, remember the tale_  
_Of Hansel and Gretel? Now, beware._

_\- Mr. Ritchie"_

"Who is this Mr. Ritchie fellow, anyways?" Mike asked out loud. "And why five keys, and not one?"

"Hm," I thought out loud. "I wonder…"

"Really?" Mike said, raising his eyebrows up. "Hansel and Gretel? They're just stories, made up. They aren't real one bit, and I'll prove it!"

"Mike, we need a plan—!" I began, but it was too late. He had already swung open the door, and was already inside the Fudge Forest room.

~Mike's POV~

The Fudge Forest room did indeed look like something straight out of a fairy tale, much to my surprise. The ceiling resembled a bright blue sky, and white cotton candy clouds were floating throughout it as well. The tree trunks in the room, I concurred, were made of a type of very realistic-looking fudge. The 'leaves' on the trees were made of sweet green fondant, and I could see bird nests containing Mr. Wonka's famous chocolate bird eggs, and some of the birds were visibly seen flying around and chirping happily as they brought back food for their hatchlings, which included earthworms made of marzipan, among other creepy critters such as edible centipedes and ants.

"What?!" I exclaimed. "I thought Hansel and Gretel was fake! I must be dreaming!"

"You want me to pinch you?" Violet joked, pinching my arm.

"Ow!" I cried. "What was that for?!"

"You said you thought you were dreaming!" she giggled.

I scowled at her.

"Ugh, I can't take much more of this," I groaned. "Let's just look for that stupid key."

The three of us continued walking through the Fudge Forest.

"Vat's this?" Augustus asked, picking up a fluffy, white object. Violet sniffed it.

"Why, it's a marshmallow!" she exclaimed.

I looked ahead of myself, and saw an entire _trail_ of marshmallows!

"Mr. Wonka sure did his research, I'll give him that," I remarked.

"Let's follow it," Violet said.

With that, we followed the trail of marshmallows, and then, approximately five minutes later, we stopped.

We looked in front of us and saw a clearing. In the clearing, was a house—completely made out of sweets. Just like Hansel and Gretel.

"You think we should—?" I began, but was cut off by Violet.

"I thought you said Hansel and Gretel was just a fairy tale, Mikey Boy," she smirked at me.

"Mikey Boy?" I questioned. "Wait, what...?"

I heard the door to the house squeak open, and an elderly woman wearing black clothes and holding a brown cane was looming through the doorway.

"Come in, children," she beckoned us.

"We're not children," I retorted. "We're teenagers."

"Just the same to me," she responded. "Please, come in to shelter yourself from the forest."

I reluctantly entered the house, followed by Violet and Augustus. The poem echoed in my head, over and over:

_"There is a key in this room._  
_But to find it, you'll need to escape a trap of doom._  
_To find it, remember the tale_  
_Of Hansel and Gretel? Now, beware."_

I've got a bad feeling about this.

~Violet's POV~

I cautiously peered around my new environment. There was a brown, rectangular table made of wood in the middle of the house with tons of seats surrounding it. On top of the table was piled countless varieties of food, as well as sweets, such as ham, chocolate, and corn. The centerpiece was a four-tier tall vanilla cake with sprinkles on it, and candles on the top tier. Behind the table, there was a dresser with framed pictures of other children that I couldn't quite make out. Towards the back of the house, then to the left, there was a stairway, and at the very back, there was an exit door. Curiously enough, however, it was blocked off by one of those red fabric rails that you would see around the red carpet with celebrities.

"Come, dearies," the elderly woman smiled at us. "Make yourselves at home, will you?"

I noticed that as she said this, she particularly gazed at Augustus.

_This can't be good_, I thought to myself. _It's as if we were trapped in a fairy tale._

We all sat down around the table, and as I thought, Augustus Gloop immediately started digging into the food around him.

"There's no need to worry, child," the woman told us. "My food's perfectly safe, you know."

Mike and I looked at each other anxiously and reluctantly began eating corn on the cob.

"That's right, my darlings," the woman smiled. "Oh, how it delights me when people come over to visit my humble home."

She went over by the dresser and picked up one of the framed photographs and showed it to us. This child was a boy, and he had messy, spiky black hair. He was wearing a skeleton t-shirt with a lightning bolt on it, along with an orange jacket and dark-green trousers. He was also wearing sunglasses that looked similar to 3D glasses.

"Why does that kid remind me of...me?" Mike asked.

The woman chuckled. "Oh, how imaginative young minds are! I haven't seen you around before now, have I?"

"I don't think so," Mike answered.

She placed the photograph down and picked up another one. This child was a girl, and she had brown hair. She had a blue, buttoned-up shirt, along with a red belt.

"Hey, this child reminds me of...me," I remarked.

"Hehehe...how peculiar," the woman chuckled, placing that photograph down by the others. "Now, isn't it time for your kiddies' beddie times?"

"No, you see ma'am, we're on a very strict schedule—" I began.

"We need to find—" Mike added.

Augustus had just finished eating.

"Dieses Essen war köstlich!" Augustus remarked, licking his lips.

"He said, 'This food was delicious!'" Mike whispered quietly to me.

"Ah, now it surely is time for your beddie times!" the woman chuckled.

"You can't make us!" I exclaimed.

"We'll see about that, dearie," the woman chuckled, taking a small spray bottle out of her hood. She pressed the trigger on it, and all went black.

~Augustus' POV~

I slowly obened mein eyes. Looking up, I saw a grey ceiling, and noticed zat I was laying on zee ground. I hastily got up, zen noticed something on zee wall—a key vith a handle zat resembled a chocolate bar! _Zee first key vas hiding in blain zight all along! Could it bozibly pe uzed to get me out of zee cell zat I'm in? Doubtful, otherwise it vouldn't be zhere. Vat now?_

I looked around, vhen a voice suddenly snapped me out of my zhoughts.

"Over here, Augustus!"

It vas Mike and Violet, and zhey vere in a cell straight across from me!

Quickly thinking, I started resuming my search around my cell. I saw a shining piece of metal underneath a bench zat vas in my cell—anozher key! Fortunately, zee bars were just big enough so zat I could reach zee keyhole. I turned the key, but zee lock didn't budge.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Violet whispered excitedly. "We found a key in our cell as well! What if...they switch! Like, Augustus' key works for our cell, and our key works for Augustus' cell?"

"It's worth a try," Mike responded. "Here goes."

Uzing zee amount of space by zee bar, he tozed zee key as much as it could. It landed on zee floor, zen slid right unter zee doorway into mein cell. I did zee zame.

"Let's ko!" I whispered back eagerly. "It's all or nozing!"

I reached through zee bar, zis time vith Mike und Violet's key...und it vorked! Ve vere all free from zee evil voman!

"Look vat I found in mein cell," I whispered, showing zee duo zee first key.

"Great work, Augustus!" Violet replied. "Now let's get out of here!"

"Oh, no you don't!" a voice cackled.

Ve looked, und zee voman vas back! Vith zee pack door blocked, und zee voman blocking zee ozher way, ve only had one chance…

"Geronimo!" Mike shouted, diving under zee voman's legs. I did zee same, and Violet used her flexibility to jump over her.

"Hey!" zee voman cried. "Come bac-c-c-!"

Ve all stopped in our tracks. Zee voman started flickering!

"I didn't do anything," Mike remarked.

"Could it have something to do with this light gizmo?" Violet asked.

"A projector!" Mike cried.

"Vu mean…" I began.

"Yes," Mike observed. "The woman was a fake."

"Put zen, vo but us in zee cell?" I asked.

"I don't know about that," Mike replied. "All I do know is that we should get out of here now that we have the first key!"

"You said it!" Violet agreed as ve all exited zee treat house.

One key down, four to go.

~Charlie's POV~

I watched as the slim shadow came closer and closer to me.

"Stay away!" I shouted. "Who are you?!"

The darkness finally cleared from the shadow. I saw a man wearing a black bowler hat, as well as oval-framed glasses and a tuxedo with black pants.

"I'll say it again!" I shouted. "Who are you?!"

"I...am Mr. Ritchie!" the man said grandly.

"What did you do with our relatives?!" I screamed.

"That is for me to know, and for you to find out," he answered me, crossing his arms, while his black dress shoes made echoing _tap_ noises around the room as he walked. "As the note said, you must find five keys scattered throughout Mr. Wonka's factory, with each key representing one of the Golden Ticket winners from four years ago. Good luck, and happy hunting."

"Wait!" I shouted as the lights began to flicker just like what happened in the Chocolate Room.

Mr. Ritchie's loud voice echoed throughout the room as the lights continued to flicker, creating an extremely scary effect. "Now, one final warning, my dear boy—don't think of getting in my way, or the consequences...will be dire."

**Author's note: The first key has been found, but things aren't looking good for Charlie! Where do you think the next one will be found, and by who? Please let us know what you thought of this chapter by reviewing it. :D In case you didn't notice, there were some Easter eggs in this chapter, so please try listing the ones you found in your review! Stay tuned for the next chapter!**


	6. The Memorabilia Room

Chapter 6 - The Memorabilia Room

**Author's note: Hello, everyone! We're back with the next chapter of our story. First, I'll reply to your reviews.**

**Guest # 1, the coconut ice caves have already been explored in "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", but who knows, they might return in an upgraded form later on. ;)**

**DontCallMeGussie, I've always liked Augustus' accent, too.**

**Guest # 2, one of the rooms you suggested will be mentioned in this chapter, but at least some of the other rooms you suggested (and possibly the Holiday Candy Train) will be featured in later chapters. Those are some very good suggestions, though!**

**XXCandyLoverXX, you'll find out where the second key will be located soon. As for the Easter eggs, your answers were correct!**

**Millie Terry (haha, "military", I get it), I'll try to include at least some of those later, perhaps in an upgraded version of the Candy Weapons room from the original story.**

**Guest # 3, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the zombie candies. Now, on with the story!**

**(Note: this chapter was written by Gs33022.)**

~Charlie's POV~

All I could manage to do was stand in place, my mouth open like a fish out of water as the lights came back on. I looked down, and I noticed a piece of white paper. I picked it up, then turned it over. It was a photograph. This photograph had a picture of a man with grey hair, glasses, and a beard, along with a white dentist's coat. Right below was a caption that said, "WILBUR WONKA."

_Wilbur Wonka?_ I asked myself. _Who is that? Is that Mr. Wonka's father? The man that he had flashbacks about on the day of our original tour?_

I turned the photograph over, searching for any sign of ownership, when I saw some extremely small writing that said, "PROPERTY OF THE MEMORABILIA ROOM. PLEASE RETURN THIS PHOTOGRAPH THERE AT ONCE."

"Oh well, I guess I could," I told myself.

I walked by the door to the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room, which was surprisingly unlocked this time. Looking down at the photograph, I realized I bumped into someone.

"Ah!" I shouted instinctively.

"Ah!" a feminine voice shouted.

It was Veruca Salt!

"Well, long time no see, Charlie," she smiled at me. She looked down at the photograph I was holding in my hand. "Did you get a note from this 'Mr. Ritchie' too?"

"I certainly did," I said. "I even encountered him! Mr. Ritchie is real!"

"Really?!" Veruca cried. "Then we'd better tell the others before it's too late!"

She looked closer at the photograph I was holding.

"Hey, this isn't a note," she remarked. "It's a photograph."

"We need to return this to the Memorabilia Room," I said. "Then we can meet up with the others."

"But where _is_ the Memorabilia Room?" Veruca asked me.

"I have no clue," I admitted. "Hopefully it's somewhere nearby."

We continued walking down the corridor, when I finally broke the silence.

"Honestly, I didn't even know we had a Memorabilia Room," I said.

As we were walking, we passed a door that said, "PIE CREAM." We stopped and looked through its viewing windows. There were Oompa-Loompas on enormous stepladders. These ladders were placed by mixers about fifteen feet tall each, and the Oompa-Loompas were dropping enormous quantities of fruits into the mixers as a pipe by the stepladders dispensed milk into it as well.

The second door we passed by said, "SLICES OF PI."

"Haha, very funny, Wonka," Veruca said sarcastically.

We looked inside the door's window and saw a giant machine with a conveyor belt on it. Countless pies were seen going under fondant pouches being controlled by electronic arms. The arms rotated the fondant pouches in such a way that they spelled out numbers on the pies, like, "3.14159265", "6095505", and "811174."

"Wow, it's literally, 'slices of pi'!" I laughed as we walked to the next room.

"Where do you think we'll find a key at, Veruca?" I asked.

"I have no idea," Veruca answered. "Knowing Wonka, it could be anywhere."

We passed many other doors, including:

CHOCOLATE-COVERED WHIPS FOR LION TAMERS

MINT JUJUBES FOR THE KID NEXT DOOR-THEY'LL GIVE HIM GREEN TEETH FOR A MONTH

STICKJAW FOR TALKATIVE PARENTS

FIZZY LEMONADE SWIMMING POOLS

WRIGGLE-SWEETS THAT WRIGGLE DELIGHTFULLY IN YOUR TUMMY AFTER SWALLOWING

After a while of walking, I looked up and saw a sign that said, "THE MEMORY CORRIDOR."

"Well, looks like we're here," I remarked, beginning to walk slower.

The Memory Corridor was extremely dark. The only lights in the entire hallway were neon letters identifying rooms, as well as more of the spheres that we came across earlier. However, these spheres were different. They didn't show me, Veruca, Mike, or the rest of us at all. Instead, they showed...Wilbur Wonka.

In one sphere, the two of us saw Wilbur Wonka walking with a little boy. This boy had what looked like braces attached to a giant helmet, which forced him to constantly smile. They were in what looked like a grocery store, looking for food and other supplies.

'Dad, can we please get this?' the boy asked, pointing to a treat-sized chocolate bar.

'Certainly not,' Wilbur answered him. 'We wouldn't want you to ruin those nice white teeth of yours now, would we?'

'But a little chocolate wouldn't hurt, would it?' the boy questioned.

'It absolutely would,' the old man said sternly. 'Now come along. I wouldn't want you to be late for your dentist appointment...Willy.'

"Willy?!" Veruca Salt cried. "Mr. Wonka's father?!"

"Let's continue watching," I suggested. "Maybe we'll find out more about what's going on here."

Another sphere we saw had the younger Willy Wonka in his room. It was relatively dark, but he was sitting at a desk with a small lamp light on. It looked like he was reading a book of some sort.

The sphere zoomed in closer, and we could hear him beginning to speak.

'Oh, Mother!' Willy cried softly. 'Why did you have to go so soon?!'

As the sphere began to move closer to younger Willy's desk, we could see he had an open diary. The top of one of the pages said, "DEAR WILLY:"

A third sphere we looked at showed us what Willy was thinking. We saw Mr. Wonka in that same grocery store in which he was refused a chocolate bar, except this time, he was with his mother.

'Mom, can we please get this?' the young Willy asked his mother.

'Of course you can, sweetie,' his mother answered, taking out her purse and giving a coin to him. 'Now go and give this coin to this sweet young man, and you can have your chocolate.'

'Alright, Mom!' he responded eagerly, rushing up to the counter with the coin that his mother had given him.  
He gave the coin to the cashier, then a cashier gave him a chocolate bar. Willy walked back to his mother. She began whispering to his son.

'Son, eat the bar now,' she told her. 'You know how mad Father would get if he found out I got you that.'

The young Willy and her mother suddenly heard someone clear their throat by them. They looked next to them, and it was none other than Wilbur Wonka.

'What is that you are holding?' Wilbur said seriously, looking down upon his son.

'Look, I can explain—!' Willy's mother butted in, standing in front of him.

'We're going to have a serious talk once we get home,' Wilbur said.

Next, we saw the two of them, Wilbur and his mother, at their home, in front of a fireplace. They were talking, and Willy was secretly watching in the shadows, unknowing to them.

'You know I just want the best for Willy, don't you?' Wilbur Wonka began.

'Yes, I know that, and I appreciate your effort, but you need to let go of some control,' she begged. 'Willy can't live like this, you understand?'

'I need to make sure Willy doesn't become a sweet addict,' Wilbur responded. 'That would be too hard for a dentist to live under.'

'A little chocolate never hurt anyone! Don't you get it?!' Willy's mother begged. 'You're so concerned about your ego and stupid reputation that you put that before your own son?!'

'I...Winnie!' Wilbur Wonka began, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything.

'You'll never learn!' Winnie Wonka shouted, storming out of their house. Wilbur saw the chocolate bar that she had bought his son and picked it up. He then took some pieces of wood, started a fire, then tossed it into it.

'No son of mine is ever going to be a sweet lover,' Wilbur mumbled.

As Willy hid in the shadows watching what was going on, he heard some splashing noises outside. It started to rain, then came the thunder, then the lightning.

**BOOM!**  
**BOOM!**

Willy snuck upstairs, then went straight to sleep.

As soon as he fell asleep, he began to dream. We saw in the spheres that he was dreaming about the very account that he witnessed in the shadows.

'You'll never learn!' Winnie Wonka shouted, slamming the door and running out of their apartment.

We saw her storm down the road from their apartment and get into a car. She drove down the road, mumbling to herself. Suddenly, without warning, lightning struck a nearby tree, causing it to set on fire then crash down onto the road. Thunder and lightning boomed loudly and lit up the night sky as Winnie Wonka slammed the brakes down on her car, but it was too late. Her vehicle started skidding on water that was on the road, and drove straight into the fire.

Winnie Wonka was dead.

"Oh my gosh," I gasped.

"What the heck did I just watch?" Veruca questioned.

"Could this be what Mr. Wonka was having flashbacks about the day of our original tour?" I asked her curiously.

"Could be," she answered. "Now, we should head to the Memorabilia Room as soon as possible and put that picture back."

"Right there," I pointed to a room right to the left of us. It said, "THE NOSTALGIA/MEMORABILIA ROOM."

I opened the door to the Memorabilia Room, and when we were halfway through the door frame, a red light started to scan us, then it stopped.

"Invisible traps disabled," a feminine voice stated as we walked across a seemingly empty space.

"Invisible traps?" Veruca Salt asked. "What was meant by that?"

Suddenly, Veruca Salt started screaming and shrieking.

"Veruca!" I exclaimed. "What's wrong?"

Veruca stood back upright, then looked at me with a slightly annoyed expression.

"Some invisible frying pans began to slap me in the face!" she exclaimed. "I thought these stupid traps were supposed to be disabled!"

"Let's continue going," I reassured her. "We're almost there."

I pointed to a door that said the same thing that was listed on the outside.

We continued walking, and suddenly, my shoes got stuck to the floor, and a squishing sound was heard.

"Hey!" I exclaimed to no one in particular. "I can't move!"

"Another 'disabled' invisible trap, eh?" Veruca remarked. "Let me help you, Charlie."

She walked over to me and gripped both of my hands.

"On the count of three," she began. "One...two...three!"

She pulled me, and we both flew through the air, with Veruca landing on me once more just like in the Chocolate Room.

"Er-hem," I cleared my throat, signaling to Veruca.

"Oops," Veruca remarked, getting off of me. "Sorry, Charlie."

We continued walking, and surprisingly reached the door without any trouble.

"Well, here goes," I said, turning the doorknob to the room.

We instantly felt like they had been transferred into a museum. Pictures lined the walls, and there were buttons and speakers on the walls of the room as well, and display cases were also scattered throughout it.

"Is that...me?" Veruca asked, looking at one of the displays. It showed a gold-framed picture of Veruca, and there was a grey plaque below it. She began reading it.

_"Veruca Salt was a spoiled, rich girl who always wanted everything. She met her demise in the Nut Room, where she said that she wanted one of the squirrels in it. When Mr. Wonka refused, she ran into the room, hoping to grab a squirrel for herself, but then the squirrels attacked her and sent both her and her father straight down the bad nut chute. At the end of the factory tour, both of them managed to escape from the factory's incinerator, albeit covered in garbage."_

"Look!" I exclaimed, pointing to a picture of Mike Teavee. "There's Mike!"

I noticed a screen and a button below Mike Teavee's picture.

"What's this?" I asked.

I pushed the button, and the screen turned on. Immediately, a recording of Mike Teavee's interview started to play. The noise echoed throughout the entire room, and Veruca gathered next to me to watch it.

"In the end, I only had to buy one candy bar," Mike said.

"And how did it taste?" a reporter asked.

"I don't know," Mike answered with a bored expression on his face. "I hate chocolate."

"Isn't that you in the center?" Veruca asked, pointing to a large exhibit in the center of the Nostalgia Room area of this place.

We walked over to the area where Veruca was pointing. There was a large display case that had a plastic Wonka's Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight mockup in it, as well as other things, such as bits and pieces of our original home. Above the display case, there was a television, and in front of the case, there was a button. I pushed it, and the television immediately sparked to life. I saw footage begin to play from inside our house.

"Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money," my Grandpa George said, looking at me and my Golden Ticket. "Are you a dummy?"

"No sir," I answered.

"Then get that mud off your pants! You've got a factory to go to!" he exclaimed happily, and I had a wide grin on my face. At that moment, there was a loud knock on our door. My father opened it, and immediately afterwards, floods of news reporters and cameras and microphones and all the rest of it started to crowd my little house.

"Is this the home of the fifth Golden Ticket finder?" one reporter asked.

"It is," my mother answered.

"Can we see him?" another asked.

"Well, it is getting close to dinnertime—!" she answered, but was interrupted by George.

"Come now, Mary," he told her. "This is Charlie's big moment. He deserves it after all this time and after all he had to go through. Dinner can wait. It doesn't matter to me."

"I suppose you're right," Mary Bucket said.

"Can we get a picture of the whole family together?" yet another reporter questioned.

"What do you say, Charlie?" my father asked me.

"Sure," I answered.

"You move over there, John…" my mother said, shuffling us around to get the perfect shot. The cameras flashed, and the television turned off.

"There it is," I pointed to a door that said, "THE MEMORABILIA ROOM."

"Let's go," Veruca smiled at me.

"Hey, that's my line!" I chuckled, and Veruca giggled back.

We entered the Memorabilia Room, and had to adjust our eyes. It was extremely dark compared to the Nostalgia Room, and there was dust everywhere. Pictures shielded by clear dust covers were scattered throughout, many of them showing Wilbur Wonka. It was obvious by the state of this room that it hadn't been visited in months, if not years.

"What's that over there?" Veruca asked, pointing towards the back of the room.

I looked, and there was a pedestal with a small box on it. It was brown and black, and had a yellow keyhole. I picked it up.

"Do you think Mr. Wonka could know what's inside this box?" she asked me.

"Probably," I answered.

"Maybe we should take it to him," she suggested to me.

"That is, if we ever see him again," I remarked.

Suddenly, a voice snapped us out of our conversation.

"Hello?" it asked. "Are you there?"

**Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Who do you think that voice belonged to? Feel free to take a guess, leave a review, and suggest more rooms that they should explore. As always, stay tuned for the next chapter. :)**


	7. Gone Missing

Chapter 7 - Gone Missing

**Author's note: Hello, readers! I bet you weren't expecting an update so soon, were you? Today marks a very special occasion for me as a writer, and that's because I published "Where All the Bad Nuts Go" four years ago on this day! It still feels like yesterday when I began typing the first chapter on my iPhone while on my break at work. To think that four _years_ have passed since then...it boggles my mind, and it makes me feel kind of old at the same time due to how fast the days, months, and years have flown by since then! O_O Now, time for me to respond to your reviews!**

**Guest, I'll definitely include those rooms later. I'm actually planning for the Gingerbread Village to be the train's destination point, but as for what the group will do once they get there...well, only I know! ;)**

**XXCandyLoverXX, I'm glad you enjoyed the flashbacks! You can thank Gs33022 for them. The Television Room will be included, so don't worry, they'll get around to it sooner or later!**

**DontCallMeGussie, Augustus was with Violet and Mike, hence the reason why you did not see him at all last chapter. Just keep on reading to find out what might happen with him. Now, on with the story!**

**(Note: this chapter was written by me. Credit for the Ice Cream Spiders goes to Effie Trinket The Time Lord.)**

"Someone's in here with us!" Veruca loudly whispered to me. She quickly grabbed my arm and we scrambled for cover behind a wooden chest, only to hear laughter coming from the other side.

"Please, we won't harm you!" the voice called out again. "It's Mike Teavee!" We peeked around the side of the chest, and sure enough, Mike, Violet, and Augustus were standing there in front of us.

Veruca stood up to her full height as she looked Violet in the eyes. "I see you've returned. Did you three have any success?"

"We sure did," Mike replied, gesturing towards Augustus, who proudly held the first key aloft. It would have looked like a regular key if the handle didn't resemble a chocolate bar. "You know, I have a feeling that since Augustus found a key that looked like a chocolate bar, which suits him...that must mean that the remaining four keys resemble our respective traits. Five keys...five Ticket winners...it all makes sense!"

"Only _now_ did the 'know-it-all' figure it out," Violet mumbled under her breath.

"WHAT?!" Mike shrieked. "You mean _you_ knew this all along? W-what are you doing, trying to undermine my—"

"Well, I was the one who initially figured out what Mr. Wonka's motive was last time," Violet rebutted. "I was the one who concluded that the mission took place just so that we could tour the rest of the factory. Now that we actually have real keys to search for, that means—"

"That you're just trying to prove me—" Mike interrupted, only to be sharply cut off by Violet, who was frantically looking around the room.

"Hey, where did Augustus go?!" Violet panicked.

"I-I have no idea," I replied. "He was here just one minute ago!"

"Great," Mike groaned in frustration. "Now we're down one team member, which means we'll be less efficient with the task at hand, which means that Mr. Ritchie might—"

"Stop it," Violet said assertively. "Remember, at least we're still a team of four, and with a computer genius and karate expert here, there's no way we could fail."

Mike sighed. "Okay, let's continue searching for the key, and we'll just look for Augustus while we're at it. At least _he'd_ be much harder to miss."

"Finally, you're starting to think like a winner," Violet said with a smile. "Let's go, everyone."

* * *

After backtracking through the Nostalgia/Memorabilia Room and navigating the invisible traps, strangely without getting stuck in them, we emerged back into the Memory Corridor. Interestingly, the spheres were now displaying purple arrows that pointed to the previous corridor we were in.

"Augustus must have had a pretty easy time here now that the traps have been disabled," Mike noted as we followed the arrows towards the exit, eventually returning to the spot where the Memory Corridor's entrance sign stood. After walking past another slew of big, round doors, we reached one that was labeled: "DEVIL'S DRENCHERS".

"Hey, aren't those the really spicy candies that allow you to breathe fire?" Violet wondered. "Somehow, I can imagine that Augustus might be in here." She pushed the door open and we walked into the room.

In the center of the room, there was an orange furnace that stood at least fifty feet tall, and dozens of pipes were coming out of and running through it. Some pipes carried a black liquid, others carried a red liquid, and eight more pipes near the bottom provided the furnace with a steady supply of fuel. There were even _more_ pipes near the top, and those pipes led into large glass cylinders, which were filled with thousands of small, black spherical candies. Once the cylinder was full, a trapdoor at the bottom of each cylinder dropped precisely fifty candies into colorful bags as they moved along a conveyor belt. The bags then traveled towards a machine that heat-sealed them before they were whisked out of sight.

"Well, there's no sign of Augustus nor a key in here," Violet concluded. "Let's move on."

We soon arrived at another door, which was labeled: "CHOCOLATE RECORDS AND TURNTABLES".

Mike was confused. "Uh...what? How could you make a turntable out of chocolate? Why even would you _want_ to eat one, anyway?"

"Beats me," Veruca replied, shrugging her shoulders. "How about we take a look?"

Inside this room, there was a gigantic machine that was covered with an equally gigantic black tarp, and every ten seconds, a turntable that was indeed made out of either dark or white chocolate slid out from underneath the machine. A robotic arm picked up each turntable and carefully placed them into an automated test chamber, which was situated behind a glass panel. Nearby, a hydraulic press was forming blobs of hot, melted chocolate into the shape of vinyl records. A robotic arm with a suction cup attached to it was carefully picking up each chocolate record before placing them onto the turntables' spindles. The machine used a special attachment to connect the turntables to a power source, and the records began to spin.

"Ugh, do we seriously have to listen to Wonka's Welcome Song _again_?" Mike complained while the testing process was underway. "Once was enough, and that was four years ago. Now that stupid song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day."

"Mike, please focus," Violet reminded him. "Yes, I hate that song too, but we must continue on. Nothing's here."

"You're lucky you weren't with us," Veruca said. "Charlie has that song as his ringtone."

"Figured," Violet muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for me to hear, but I chose to remain silent as we exited the room.

The next door we arrived at displayed "STRAWBERRY SHARKS" in glowing red letters. We walked inside to find an enormous aquarium with a large number of red sharks swimming around in it.

"I'll admit, they look rather docile," I said, "but I don't see Augustus in here."

"Hold on," Mike said as he scanned the floor of the aquarium, which was full of little candy pebbles of all shapes and sizes. Eventually, he shook his head. "Well, I don't see any way that one of our keys could be in here. Let's keep checking."

While we continued to walk further down the corridor, we took the opportunity to catch up on what happened after we went our separate ways.

"Well, like I said, Augustus was the first of us to find one of the keys," Mike said to me and Veruca, "and we found it in the Fudge Forest. You know the tale of Hansel and Gretel, right?" Both Veruca and I nodded. "Once inside the Fudge Forest, we followed a trail of marshmallows that led into a house made entirely out of candy. This old woman greeted us there, and while we had a meal there, she showed us pictures that eerily resembled me and Violet. She then made us temporarily fall asleep using a spray bottle, and we woke up in prison cells, with Augustus in one cell and myself and Violet in the other. Augustus found his key in his cell, but we had to switch keys temporarily, because _his_ key was the one that unlocked our cell, and vice versa. The woman caught us and tried to prevent us from escaping, and I was the first to duck underneath her legs to try and escape. It didn't take long before we realized that she was only a hologram, not a real person! We then explored a few more rooms, but the key wasn't in any of them, and eventually, we ended up in the Memorabilia Room, where we found you two."

"Wow, that's crazy," Veruca exclaimed. Turning towards me, she asked, "Do you want to tell the others about what we've experienced, Charlie?"

"Certainly!" I replied enthusiastically. "Do you remember when we first walked down the corridor that led to the Chocolate Room four years ago?"

"Yes, I remember," Violet said.

"As we walked along, the floor suddenly dropped out from beneath us and we were sent down a slide, landing in a room that was full of cubes, sort of like the spheres we encountered inside the Memory Corridor. Eventually, we found the exit, only to arrive at a door called the 'Magicdoor', which turned out to be an illusion since we were able to walk straight through it, even though it looked as solid as can be."

"Sort of like the Illusionary Ice Cream that Augustus literally fell for!" Mike interjected, trying to stifle a laugh. "Augustus lunged for a huge pile of chocolate ice cream, only to fall straight through and hit his head on the floor." I let out a small chuckle, and Veruca was smirking at him.

"I can _definitely_ imagine that," Veruca said. "Poor Augustus. Anyway, we began to explore some rooms as well, starting with the Hot Ice Cubes and Weird Lollipops. We decided to split up after that, so I checked out the Heart-Shaped Lungs room, which was rather creepy, and Charlie went inside the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room. In our respective rooms, we found a note from Mr. Ritchie, and Charlie actually met him in person. He ended up getting a photograph with Wilbur Wonka's photo on it, and that was when we knew we had to find the Memorabilia Room to return the photo...and then you know what happened from there."

"Uh, guys, are you done talking now?" Violet asked impatiently as we stopped in front of a door that was labeled: "BLUEBERRY BEARS". "We still have both a key and a certain German boy to search for."

"Right, sorry," I apologized.

"Good," Violet responded as she pushed the large, round door open. "Let's keep looking."

This room was filled with hundreds of chocolate bark trees, complete with spearmint leaves, and life-sized blue gummy bears were roaming around the area. There was even a den with little blue bear cubs!

"Those cubs are far too cute to eat," Veruca said as she walked towards them. There was a large bear in the cubs' vicinity, but since it was a sentient candy, I knew that it would not harm any of us.

While Veruca stayed behind with the cubs, I searched the forest with Mike and Violet. After almost half an hour, our results turned out to be fruitless.

"Nothing in here," Mike said. "There's no sign of Augustus in the forest, either. Let's go."

"Aw, but I want to stay with the cubs!" Veruca protested. "Just one more minute, please?"

"No, we've gotta get out of here," Violet curtly replied. "You can always come back later."

"Fine," Veruca sighed, and we exited the room to continue our mission.

The next door was labeled: "CRANBERRY COBRAS".

"I-I hate snakes," Veruca said, backing away in fright. "You can go inside without me."

"They're only candies, Veruca," Mike told her, but she refused to budge. "Very well, you may stay behind. Violet and Charlie, in we go." He opened the door and the three of us entered the room. There was a field of grass, the same kind of grass that covered the ground inside the Chocolate Room. One major difference, however, was the unmistakable sound of hissing snakes. However, there was no sign of Augustus.

"Look, Mike!" Violet exclaimed as a red snake slithered in front of her. Actually, there were _hundreds_ of snakes, all slithering around on the grass. I reached out to touch one of them, but it quickly reared its head upwards and bit my hand!

"Ow!" I cried out in shock. "The snake bit me!"

"Well, they're cobras," Mike replied. "Of course they'll bite. Do you feel anything else? Any venom going into your bloodstream?"

"No, just the initial bite," I said as I examined my hand. Within seconds, the bite marks were completely gone. "I should be fine."

After carefully treading on the grass to search for the key, taking great care not to agitate the snakes any further, we left the room empty-handed.

"Again, nothing," I said to Veruca. "One of the snakes nabbed my hand, but I'm all fine now, so there's no need to worry."

Before Veruca had a chance to reply, we reached yet another door: "ICE CREAM SPIDERS". Violet quickly opened the door, and Veruca screamed at the top of her lungs once she saw what was inside. The walls were painted an icy-blue color, and a massive brown web made of caramel spanned the room, even reaching all the way up to the domed ceiling. Dozens of large, brown spiders made from chocolate ice cream were glaring at us with their many unblinking eyes.

"Well, there aren't any keys caught in the web," Violet concluded, "and clearly Augustus is not here."

Veruca sighed in relief once Violet closed the door, and we silently continued onward until we reached a door that was labeled: "DINASOUR EGGS".

"Uh, I think they spelled it wrong," Mike spoke up. "It's supposed to be 'dinosaur eggs'."

Violet profusely shook her head. "Nope, they're dinasour eggs. My mother used to eat them by the dozens when she was a kid!" She pushed open the big, round door. "Maybe, just _maybe_, Augustus might be somewhere in this room."

**Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Which rooms do you think they should explore after this? Feel free to leave some suggestions and feedback, and as always, stay tuned for more! :D**


	8. A Trip Back in Time

Chapter 8 - A Trip Back in Time

**Author's note: Hello, everyone! Sorry it's been such a long time, but I'm finally back with the next chapter of my collab with Gs33022. It's the longest one so far, so I hope you'll all enjoy it! Without further ado, let's address all the lovely reviews I received. :)**

**DontCallMeGussie, you'll find out where Augustus snuck off to sooner or later in the story. Don't worry, they'll find him eventually!**

**Guest # 1, your suggestions will appear in future chapters.**

**Guest # 2, Punky's and Wonka Donutz will be featured in this chapter, but I'm not so sure about the other suggestions as of yet. It's tough to come up with a name for those obscure candies!**

**Guest # 3, you'll just have to wait for the train ride to find out, won't you? ;)**

**Guest # 4, I'm definitely including that. That way, the group (and us readers) can understand what the rooms they're traveling through are in more detail.**

**Guest # 5, What a great idea! I am DEFINITELY including that in a future chapter. Now, on with the story!**

**(Note: this chapter was written by me.)**

"Wow, it's like we've stepped back in time to witness Wonka's version of the Cretaceous period!" Violet said in awe as we entered the Dinasour Eggs room. Towering mountains and prehistoric-looking plants and trees surrounded us, and dinasours of all shapes, sizes, and colors were roaming (or in the case of the Pterodactyls, flying) around the area.

"They must be candy dinosaurs," I said out loud as a bright-orange Stegosaurus lumbered past us. "I've seen plenty of sentient candies before, but nothing _nearly_ as big or majestic as these dinasours!"

Mike loudly cleared his throat. "Technically, Violet, they're not only from the Cretaceous period," he corrected her. "The Stegosaurus is from the Jurassic period, and so is the Pterodactyl."

"Thanks, Mr. Know-It-All," Violet jokingly replied. "Now, let's—"

_**ROOOOOOAAAAARRRRRR!**_

Everyone, including Violet for once, staggered backwards a few feet as an enormous, bright-red T. rex burst out from behind a cluster of tall plants and began stomping towards our group. Its roar was so loud that it caused the entire room to shake.

"It's...it's not gonna eat us, right?" Veruca nervously asked as the T. rex stomped closer and closer towards her.

"They're candy dinosaurs, so I highly doubt that," Mike replied, crossing his arms as he did so. The T. rex lowered its head ever so slightly as it acknowledged the new visitors, and then it turned around and stomped towards a large red nest. Seconds later, the massive dinasour began laying eggs into the nest. They were about the size of a softball.

"I'll look through this one," I said once the coast was clear. I walked towards the T. rex nest and began to comb through it with my fingers in search of one of the other keys.

"Look, there's another one!" Violet called out from a short distance away. She was proceeding to sift through an orange nest, which was filled with baseball-sized dinasour eggs. "These must be the Stegosaurus' eggs!"

To my left, Veruca was digging through a green nest that contained even smaller eggs. As she searched, a green dinasour that was a tad bigger than a turkey ran towards Veruca at an amazing speed before stopping on a dime. Its long tail moved side to side as it eyed the British girl. The dinasour would have looked cute had it not been for the dozens of sharp teeth that were seen through its barely-open mouth. It let out a little "Rawr!" before turning around and running off.

"What are these eggs here?" Veruca inquired when she was almost done looking.

"They're velociraptor eggs," Mike replied from high above. He just finished looking through the Pterodactyls' nest, situated high up in one of the trees, and the eggs in his hands were about the size of an almond. "Anyone having luck so far?"

"No," the rest of us simultaneously replied.

"Well, I guess we're heading off once more," Mike said, shrugging his shoulders before climbing down the tree's thick, sturdy trunk. He let go when he was about five feet from the ground, safely jumping away from the tree and landing on the floor, taking one last glimpse at the dinasours as we left the room.

After a brief walk through the corridor, we arrived at the entrance of another room: "VOLCANO ROCKS". This area was similar to the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room, except there were no cranes positioned above the volcanoes, and instead of raspberry icing, thousands of tiny pebbles that came in all sorts of colors erupted from each volcano. The pebbles landed on the sides of each volcano, tumbling down to the ground where a circular conveyor constantly revolved around the volcanoes' base. A steel wall that acted as a guide was positioned across one side of the conveyor, and as the conveyor continued to revolve, the steel wall guided the rocks off the conveyor and down a chute which led towards a trapdoor. The candies were dumped into small paper boxes that were then carried via another conveyor belt towards the main packaging department. We searched the area, walking up and down a long cobblestone path and peering through dense masses of ferns, but again we found nothing.

"Did you guys explore those rooms at all?" I asked Mike and Violet as we passed by the Volcanoes for Toasting Marshmallows room and the Heart-Shaped Lungs room.

"Personally, we didn't," Violet replied, "but I'm going into both of them to look for Augustus and the remaining keys by myself. I'll catch up with you guys later."

"There's no point in doing that," I said to her. "We already looked, and we didn't find any keys in there. Plus, that was where I first met Mr. Ritchie." I turned around to look for her, but she had already disappeared into the Heart-Shaped Lungs room without a sound. "Well, I guess we're down another member now."

"She'll be fine," Mike reassured me. "Remember, she's not afraid of anything. In the meantime, let's continue onward. We'll cover more ground this way."

The next doors we passed by led to the rooms where the Weird Lollipops and hot ice cubes were being made, which Veruca and I had already explored. After walking past the illusionary "Magicdoor", we turned a corner and arrived at another large, round door, which was labeled: "WONKA DONUTZ".

"Isn't that one of Wonka's older products?" Veruca asked me.

"I think so," I replied with a smile. "Same with the Dinasour Eggs and Volcano Rocks. I'll just ask my Grandpa Joe about it once we're done. He'll know for sure, since he used to work for Mr. Wonka."

"Actually, they were created right at the beginning of 2005," Mike corrected me, "so they're a relatively recent product."

"It's interesting how Mike doesn't care for chocolate and yet he knows quite a lot about Willy Wonka's candies by this point," Veruca whispered into my ear. I replied with a nod.

Veruca turned the door's large handle, and as the door silently swung open, we beheld an incredible sight.

This room was reminiscent of an 18th century town. Female Oompa-Loompas were walking around with white cloth hoods on their heads, and some were even pushing their newborn babies around in baby strollers. The male Oompa-Loompas wore blue uniforms with yellow buttons on them, along with black pants and dress shoes. Every building in it was made of Wonka's Never-Melting chocolate, but the chocolate itself was modeled to look like wood. Instead of cars, the method of transportation in this room was via a horse and buggy, and the horses that were designed to pull the carriages along were sentient candies made from caramel. The roads were made to look like stone, even though they were actually made out of grey rock candy. The strange thing, though, was this: Instead of using typical carriage wheels, the carriages used what looked like mini donuts, complete with rainbow sprinkles.

We strolled around the calm, quaint neighborhood, greeting every single Oompa-Loompa we passed, whether they were on foot or riding in one of the horse-drawn carriages. The doors at the front of each house were closed, but by peering through the windows, we were able to catch glimpses of Oompa-Loompas baking several batches of these mini donuts in the kitchen. Some batches of mini donuts were for the Oompa-Loompa families to have for dessert after supper, but most of the donuts were being carried through the town towards a small building at the outskirts of the town. I watched as one of the female Oompa-Loompas entered the tiny structure. She placed a batch of donuts onto a stone counter, and a section of the counter lowered itself like an elevator, depositing the donuts onto a hidden conveyor belt to be packaged for retail.

"Perhaps Augustus went down there?" I joked.

"There's no way he'd ever fit in there, Charlie," Veruca said to me, lightly squeezing my hand. "He _could_ be in one of the houses, though, who knows?"

"Look over there," Mike suggested, pointing towards a large building with a wooden plaque above its door that read "CLOTHING". "Maybe we could borrow some clothes from there to act as a disguise, so that we could appear somewhat inconspicuous during our temporary mission."

A few minutes later, we exited the building, looking quite different from when we first entered. Mike and I wore the same attire as the male Oompa-Loompas, except our uniforms, pants, and shoes were a lot bigger to suit our taller stature. Likewise, Veruca wore the same clothes as the female Oompa-Loompas, only they were more appropriate for her size.

"Let's do this," Mike proclaimed. We walked up to the house closest to us, and Mike knocked on the door three times. A few seconds passed before the door opened, and one of the female Oompa-Loompas greeted the trio.

"Hello, visitors," she said. "What brings you here?"

"We were wondering if you've seen a certain German boy around here," Mike replied, "as well as any keys other than the ones you use for your own doors."

The Oompa-Loompa shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't say yes for either of them, but you're welcome to enter. I'm Amber, by the way."

"Pleased to meet you, Amber," Veruca said politely as we stepped over the threshold, and Amber closed the door behind us. She led us into the living room, where several paintings of herself and the rest of her family hung on the walls. There was an oak table in the center, and two wooden chairs and a large couch were positioned in front of it. The best part of all this was the smell of freshly baked donuts wafting into the room from the kitchen. Amber motioned with her arm for us to have a seat on the couch, and we promptly did so.

"Forgive me for my lack of knowledge here," Amber said, "but these keys you're looking for...what purpose do they serve?"

"We don't know, ma'am," I responded. "A man named Mr. Ritchie somehow entered the factory, possibly by breaking into it or breaching the security system, and he said that we must find five keys by sunset, or else our guardians will be gone forever."

A look of confusion appeared on Amber's face. "But there are only three people in your party," she replied.

"The other two wandered off to other areas of the factory," Mike quickly replied, "but we thought one of them might be in this room, since...you know, uh, donuts and all."

"Well, I can verify that we haven't seen any sign of him. I'm terribly sorry." Amber stood up from her chair and walked towards the kitchen. "But I can make it up to you by offering some donuts to each of you. Would you like one?"

"Certainly!" I replied enthusiastically.

"I'd love one, too," Veruca added.

"Me too," Mike said, "as long as they're not chocolate."

"Sorry, they're only available in chocolate," Amber apologized, "but you can save yours for the other two members of your party once you're all reunited." She held out a steel tray that was lined with parchment paper, and since the donuts were small, we each picked two from the tray. "I sincerely hope you'll enjoy them. Now, I understand that you have a quest to fulfill, so I'll let you be on your merry way."

"It was very nice to meet you, Amber," I said. Amber nodded and crossed her arms in a tribal manner, and we exited the house with our donuts in hand. I took a bite out of mine, and I was surprised to discover that there was a truffle in the middle! "Wow, this is really good! What do you think, Veruca?"

"They're delicious," the British girl replied. "Augustus will love these for sure."

"I'll give one of mine to Violet," Mike said. "She'll enjoy them more than I _ever_ will. Once you two are done eating, we must change out of these ridiculous costumes."

* * *

Now that we were decked out in 21st-century clothing once again, we left the Wonka Donutz room, stopping outside a door labeled "PUNKY'S" about a hundred feet away.

"That suits you well, Mike," I said to him as I opened the door. Loud punk music was blaring from speakers all around the room, and there were tons of tiny little candies, all dressed up in punk fashion, moshing and headbanging on a stage in the middle, where an Oompa-Loompa punk band was playing. The candies came in blueberry, strawberry, grape, and lime flavors. After each song the Oompa-Loompas played, about five-hundred candies began to form a line before splitting off into groups of about forty or fifty. They jumped onto a trap door and their arms, legs, hair, clothes, and facial features faded away, and they were dumped into little boxes with cartoon drawings on them. The boxes were then sealed and whisked away to the packaging department.

Mike frowned. "Well, good luck finding the key in—"

"THERE YOU ARE!" a female voice shouted. Violet came running out of the darkness and stopped right in front of us. "I walked out of the Heart-Shaped Lungs room and yelled as loud as I could for you guys, but you were nowhere to be found!"

"I'm so glad you're back!" Mike exclaimed, giving her a quick hug. Once they pulled away, he asked, "What about Augustus? Have you seen him around?"

"No I haven't," Violet replied, "but I'm confident that he isn't too far away."

Mike smiled at her. "Well, now that we're a team of four again, let's roll on!"

"Mike, I have something to tell you," Violet said to him as we continued our journey down the corridor. "While it is a good idea to be searching each room for the remaining keys, I have a feeling that there's a quicker way."

"Are you nuts?" Mike spluttered. "_You're_ the one with all the determination here, and yet you're copping out on our mission? I understand that we have a time limit, but—"

"Let me explain," Violet said calmly. "If my theory is correct, our keys are designed to suit our personalities in some way or another. Augustus found his key in the Fudge Forest, and his key resembled a chocolate bar. Chances are that your key is related to technology in one way or another. Do you get where I'm going with this, Mike? It's likely that the keys will be found in locations that pertain the most to our traits as well. For example, it's highly unlikely that your key will be found in the Everlasting Gobstoppers room. Your key will more than likely be located in the Television Room, the Server Room, or somewhere else in that category. Thus, if we narrow it down just a tad, we should be able to find all five well before sunset. But...on second thought, we do still have to search for Augustus, and unlike the keys, there's a very real possibility that he could be literally anywhere."

"How about we go inside that room?" I suggested, pointing at a door that was labeled: "COBALT FROSTDROPPERS".

"Works for me," Mike replied. He opened the large, round door, and a blast of freezing cold air hit us like a speeding train. Giant pistons were moving up and down, turbines were whirring, and ball bearings were doing whatever they're supposed to do. The walls were covered with gauges and digital displays that measured temperature and pressure. Five levels of narrow steel catwalks spanned the circumference of the room, and two sets of spiral staircases provided access to each level. Dozens of Oompa-Loompas were milling about the area, and they wore space suits to protect themselves from the extremely cold air inside this room.

In the center of the room was an enormous silver freezer that was cooled by liquid helium. Mike told me that it's the only material on Earth that never exists as a solid, only as a cryogenic liquid and as a gas, so it was very well-suited for the job. Two small needle-like pipes stuck out of the left and right sides of the freezer, and every ten seconds, a tiny drop of blue liquid formed on the end of each pipe. It immediately hardened into a small pellet before it broke away, landed onto the floor, and bounced around before rolling towards a big pile where tens of thousands of these little candies were gathered up. A big yellow bulldozer drove up to the pile and pushed all the candies onto a chute which led towards the packaging department.

"N-no s-sign of Aug-g-gustus," Veruca said, shivering as if she was in an earthquake. "I th-think we'd b-bet-t-ter l-leave!"

"I ag-g-gree w-with you f-for once, V-Veruc-ca," Violet responded, shivering just as much as Veruca was. In fact, we were _all_ too cold for comfort. "I'm ash-shamed t-to be s-saying this, b-but I most cer-ertainl-ly don't w-want to g-get frostb-bite!" She sighed in defeat as we exited the room, empty-handed once more.

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter! The Wonka Donutz room was BY FAR my favorite part of the story to write as of yet! What was your favorite part of this chapter, and where should our group go next? Feel free to review and provide your suggestions, and as always, stay tuned for the next chapter!**


	9. Squids and Skateboards

Chapter 9 - Squids and Skateboards

**Author's note: Hello, dear readers! We're back with the ninth chapter of our collab, featuring even more discontinued candies and a whole lot of action! Without further ado, I'll reply to your reviews!**

**XXCandyLoverXX, I'm so happy that you enjoyed the last chapter as much as you did! Gs33022 described the Wonka Donutz room in his story, "Charlie's Chocolatey Adventure". My imagination ran absolutely _wild_ as I wrote that scene, and that's how it came to be!  
**

**DontCallMeGussie, I wouldn't make such a firm assumption just yet. Even _I_ don't know whose key will be found next! Everyone will find their respective keys before the end of the story, though, so don't worry!**

**Guest, the Wacky Wafers will be included in a later chapter. Now, on with the story! :)**

**(Note: this chapter was written by Gs33022.)**

"What are we going to do now?" I said out loud to myself, gripping myself in an attempt to warm up. "We've searched all sorts of rooms, and _still_ haven't found Augustus!"

"I'll help you, Charlie," Veruca smiled, looking at me. A few seconds later, she had one of her arms wrapped around me, and I slowly, but surely, began to warm up.

"Thanks, d—er, Veruca," I stuttered, looking back at her. "That's really helping."

"You're welcome, Charlie," Veruca smiled, moving her face closer to mine.

Suddenly, I noticed that Violet was bending down, and she had a shiny object in her hand. It glimmered brightly in the light fixtures in the corridor, causing me to blink before adjusting my eyes in order to see what she was holding.

"What the—?" Veruca cried. "Come on! I was conducting important business with Charlie!"

"Whatever it is, it can wait," Mike said, observing what Violet had in her hand.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing to the silver object.

"It's a Wonka Bar wrapper," she answered, unwrinkling it and holding it out for all of us to see. It said, "CHILLY CHOCOLATE CREME" on it, and it was a light-blue color with a white "WONKA" logo on it. Like the rest of his candy, the left side of the W curled over into a small loop.

"Chilly Chocolate Creme," I remarked to myself. "One of Mr. Wonka's lesser known flavors, but still decently popular enough to gain a following."

"What other Wonka Bar flavors are there?" Veruca asked, turning to look in my eyes, her arms still wrapped around me.

"Well...let me think," I responded. "We have...Crunchilicious Graham Cracker, which is pieces of graham cracker spread throughout chocolate...Bunch o' Banana, which is dried up banana pieces mixed up with chocolate...and Fruity Nutty Fiesta, which is a dried fruit variety and walnuts spread throughout chocolate. One other bar I can think of is the Wonka Xploder, which is chocolate mixed with popping candy."

"Are you two lovebirds done yet?" Mike glared at us, clearing his throat. "We have a mission to fulfill. You can do whatever romance you want later."

"Sorry," I apologized, and we continued walking.

As we continued our trek through Mr. Wonka's factory, I kept getting thoughts in my mind. Who was Mr. Ritchie? How did he enter the factory? And why did he specifically choose to kidnap our guardians and not us?

Fortunately, these thoughts did not last long, as Violet's voice snapped me out of them.

"Look!" she pointed out. "There's a bunch of wrappers in front of this room! Maybe Augustus is in here!"

I looked, and the door said, "SHOCKERS."

We entered the room, and we thought that we had instantly been transferred into a mad scientist's laboratory. The room was very dark, with strobe lights flashing on the ceiling in order to imitate lightning. Towards the back of the room, there were small chairs with doohickeys on the left and right of them that looked like lightning rods with bulbs attached. Every couple minutes, a flash of lightning would hit the rods, then a small blob that was on the chair would suddenly gain arms, legs, and eyes and begin walking towards a conveyor belt that was on the other end. There was a stepping stool in front of it, and the candy would use it to walk on the belt, to which their arms and legs would fade away, as well as their facial features, to be taken to the packaging department. Then, an Oompa-Loompa wearing a white lab coat and clear goggles would place another candy on the chair, and the process would repeat itself.

"This room does look cool," I remarked, "but it looks like Augustus must have moved on from here. Let's continue our trek."

As we stepped out of the room and closed its door, we noticed that the trail continued going down the hallway in front of the doors of other rooms.

"Looks like he left a pretty obvious trail," Veruca chuckled as we continued following the Wonka Bar wrappers. We ended up stopping in front of a door that said, "SQUISHY SQUIDS."

Entering the room, the general environment of it felt like we had just entered an aquarium. A nice breeze was blowing, fortunately not as cold as the Cobalt Frostdroppers room, and the smell of fresh water was in the air. There were Oompa-Loompas wearing orange rubber suits (like the red, shining, yellow, and white ones during the original tour) climbing on ladders, and they were holding colored gummy fish in their hands and tossing them into enormous glass tanks. Inside each of these tanks, there were things like tough rock candy designed to resemble coral, actual rock candy, and a special kind of candy fondant that was made to look like seaweed. However, that wasn't all. There were also gigantic squids, colored red, orange, or purple. They had extremely long tentacles, as well as huge heads, and were using jet propulsion to swim through the water. As a gummy fish fell into the water, one of the squids would use their tentacles to grip it, then gobble it up. Another fish would get tossed in, and the process would repeat, until a grey bucket next to the ladder was completely empty.

"Excuse me sir," Mike called up to one of the Oompa-Loompas on the ladder. "You wouldn't have happened to come across a German boy, wouldn't you?"

"Woah—!" the Oompa-Loompa shouted. He was so into his work that Mike talking startled him, and he fell into the tank!

"Help!" the Oompa-Loompa shouted. "Save me! I can't swim!"

Thinking quickly, Violet used her flexibility to get to the top of the ladder as quickly as possible, then shouted down to the Oompa-Loompa, "Grab hold!"

"Hurry, Violet!" I shouted. Veruca, Violet, and Mike followed my gaze, and one of the Squishy Squids was going after the Oompa-Loompa! It was red-colored, and was, like the other ones, using jet propulsion to go towards him, and it had its tentacles extended outwards, reaching towards the poor worker.

The Oompa-Loompa grunted, trying as hard as he could to reach for Violet's hand as the Squishy Squid came closer and closer to him. Then, he did it! Milliseconds after the frightened Oompa-Loompa was pulled out of the water, the squid was in the spot where he was.

"Whew!" the Oompa-Loompa gasped. "Thanks a ton for saving me! My name's Wilbur, by the way."

"You're welcome," Violet said to him.

"Have you seen a—?" Mike began, but he was cut off by Violet.

"Mike, I think you have something to say to Mr. Wilbur," she said.

Mike sighed.

"I'm sorry for startling you," he apologized.

The Oompa-Loompa chuckled.

"Eh, that's alright," Wilbur told him. "When I get into my work, I get startled often. This isn't the first time that I've fallen into the Squid tank at feeding time."

Mike resumed his question.

"Have you seen a German boy?" he asked.

"What does he look like?" Wilbur asked.

"He has an orange and white striped shirt on, for one," Mike explained.

"Hmm," Wilbur said thoughtfully, gripping his chin. "I might have seen someone like that come in, but he exited rather quickly."

"Do you know where he went?" Veruca enquired.

"Afraid not," Wilbur said. "It went by too fast. Good luck on your hunt, though."

"Thank you so much, Wilbur," I waved as we all exited the Squishy Squids room together.

"Well that was interesting," Mike remarked as we closed the door to the Squishy Squids room. "We may not know exactly where he is, but we know he visited this room, plus he left a trail."

We all looked at the trail of Wonka Bars wrappers going up and down the corridor and continued our search. The next door was about ten feet away from the Squishy Squids room. It said, "RINKY DINKS."

"Rinky Dinks?" I enquired. "What a strange name that is. Let's go inside."

We entered the Rinky Dinks room, and it was a strange sight. It looked as if we had been transported outside. The ceiling of the room was a light blue with cotton candy clouds, and there was also asphalt made out of rock candy. In the center of the room, there was a gigantic skateboarding ramp made out of sturdy, non-melting chocolate.

Instead of Oompa-Loompas, balls with arms and legs that were colored pink, purple, orange, yellow, and red were on skateboards on the rink in the room, doing flips, turns, and other tricks. On one side of the skateboarding rink, there was a hole. After a few minutes of doing jumps, turns, and more, a couple of the balls would go through the hole, which was connected to a conveyor belt. When they arrived at the other side of the hole, their arms and legs would have faded away, but mysteriously enough, their faces would be imprinted on their former body. Each of these faces consisted of an overly large, cartoonish nose and big eyes, as well as thick eyebrows and a smiling expression.

"Wow, this candy seems awesome!" I exclaimed.

"I agree," Violet said. "After we find our guardians, this would be the perfect place for Mikey Boy to exercise at."

"One," Mike sighed, obviously frustrated, "my name's _not_ Mikey Boy, and two, I hate skateboarding! That sport was _so_ the 90s and early 2000s!"

"Have you ever tried it?" Violet smirked.

"No," said Mike firmly, "and I don't want to."

As soon as she said that, one skateboarding Rinky Dink came up to us. He was yellow colored, and smiling happily.

"I just-so-happened to have overheard your conversation, and I'll be glad to provide you with some skateboarding equipment!" he smiled. "Just go to the changing room over there!" He pointed to a door that said, "CHANGING-ROOM."

Violet smirked at Mike, then smiled at the Rinky Dink.

"I'll be glad to accept your offer," she told him, "but we can't stay long."

"Alright!" the yellow Rinky Dink smiled. "I'll be waiting for you as soon as you're ready!"

~Violet's POV~

A few minutes later, we had fully changed into our respective skateboarding outfits. I was wearing a pink helmet and blue knee pads, Charlie was wearing a brown helmet with white knee pads, Veruca was wearing a pink helmet with glitter on it, along with brown knee pads, and Mike was wearing a red helmet with black knee pads.

"Do we _really_ have to do this?" Mike looked at me uncomfortably.

"Come on, Mike, you'll be fine," I said, gripping his hand.

One minute later, we were on the top of the skateboarding ramp. Mike's legs were shaking as he was on top of his skateboard, looking down upon the huge drop that he was about to go down. He gulped.

"Are you _absolutely_ sure about this?" Mike questioned, looking at me.

"Go on!" I encouraged him. "It's perfectly safe!"

"But what if I go through the hole?" he asked.

"Oh, don't worry about that!" the Rinky Dink said. "There's an invisible detector in there so the wrong things don't get packaged up."

"Fine," Mike sighed, giving in. "If you say so."

I heard him mumbling under his breath.

"Drop…" he sweated. "Roller coaster…"

Then, he closed his eyes and braced himself for the drop.

_**Whoosh!**_

He went down the ramp, did a perfect u-turn around the hole, and he even managed to be able to have enough energy in his skateboard to get back to our side—and he did all this without even knowing it!

Opening his eyes, he asked nervously, "Is it over yet?"

"You were _perfect_!" I exclaimed. "You should have seen yourself!"

"That was one of the most rad skateboard tricks I'd ever seen!" the Rinky Dink cried. "You did an amazing job!"

"Never again," I heard Mike mumble under his breath. "Never, _ever_ again."

**Author's note: I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Did you know that Rinky Dinks and Willy Wonka's Squids (the Squishy Squids in our story) were real candies? As always, please feel free to review and tell us which rooms you'd like the group to explore next, and stay tuned for Chapter 10!**


	10. Charlie Takes the Helm

Chapter 10 - Charlie Takes the Helm

**Author's note: Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Chapter 10 of Bad Nuts: the Anniversary! Today is Gs33022's birthday, so please wish him a happy birthday in the comments! :) Also, he is re-writing "Next in Line", one of my other stories, since we both felt that it could have turned out better, even though many people enjoyed it as it was. It's called "Kind at Heart", and you can find it on Gs33022's profile. Now, I'll respond to your reviews.**

**Guest # 1, as much as everyone's character traits may have changed since the original tour, it seems that Mike's stubbornness is not one of them! **

**Guest # 2, the error has been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out.**

**XXCandyLoverXX, the Hansel & Gretel reference wasn't intentional, but it was interesting that you pointed it out! Now, as for where the trail of Wonka Bar wrappers could possibly lead to. just keep reading to find out! Gs33022 said the Squishy Squids room was his favorite part of the story so far, so I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! As for the Oompa-Loompa Village, it'll appear eventually in an upgraded form!  
**

**Guest # 3, I remember listening to that song as a kid. :D**

**Guest # 4, candy versions of Loompaland creatures? Hmmm, I'll consider that.**

**This chapter is Gs33022's longest effort to date, being nearly 11,000 words in length, so please make sure to read the entire chapter from start to finish! Now, on with the story!**

As we exited the Rinky Dinks room, waving to the yellow Rinky Dink in farewell, Mike sighed and turned to look at us.

"I am never doing that again," he said, wiping his brow.

"You were great, Mike!" I said encouragingly, patting him on the back.

"Look," he responded. "We're getting distracted from our mission. First, we need to find Augustus, then after that, we need to find our respective keys so we don't lose our guardians forever. Understood?"

"At least we have this convenient trail left by him," I pointed out, looking at the trail of chocolate wrappers spread throughout the corridors. Let's go, everyone. We can win this."

~Charlie's POV~

We looked down at Augustus' trail as we continued walking, and a few minutes later, we stood in front of a door that said, "WACKY WAFERS WATER PARK."

"Heh," I chuckled to myself, thinking out loud. "It's actually in the Recreation Corridor this time around."

"What do you mean, Charlie?" Veruca asked me.

"You see," I answered her, "when me and Mr. Wonka were working together to add new rooms, there were some floor plan errors, and so, the Fizzy Lemonade Water Park ended up being constructed in the recently made _North_ Corridor instead of the _Recreation_ Corridor."

Mike sighed.

"You two can _never_ quit imagining, can you?" he said.

"Well if you ask me, you yourself could need some imagination!" Violet chuckled at him.

"Hey, I have an imagination!" Mike complained. "If I had a son, I'd make him _way_ more imaginative than you!"

He pointed at Violet.

"And you, and you!" he continued, pointing to me and Veruca one at a time.

"You forgot an extra 'you'," Violet smirked jokingly.

Mike sighed.

"Let's just go inside and look for Augustus," he told us, opening the door.

We entered the Wacky Wafers Water Park, and almost immediately afterwards, the smell of lemonade entered our nostrils. In the center of the room, there was an enormous tower, and as a 'bucket', an upside-down version of Mr. Wonka's top hat could be seen filling up with lemonade, then tipping over when it became full enough. Oompa-Loompa children could be seen running around with swim shorts, laughing and spraying each other with lemonade. It was slightly humid in this room, and Mike's slightly spiky hair could be seen bending down due to the humidity.

Surrounding the tower, there was a river, similar to a lazy river, but many adult Oompa-Loompa were lounging around in what looked like tubes. These objects were colored green, pink, orange, yellow, and red, and the slides on the tower were also in these colors. Many Oompa-Loompa children could be seen in the river as well with these objects, except they were playing around in them, including splash, paddling, and even going underwater, then resurfacing through their holes. Surrounding the tower, there were lifeguards towers with both male and female Oompa-Loompas on them, and they were blowing their whistles.

"No splashing the lemonade in someone's eyes!" one male lifeguard shouted.

"No diving!" a female lifeguard shouted. "That's dangerous over here!"

Towards the back of the room, we could see two motion sensitive doors that led to two extremely massive slides that were, in fact, so huge that the Oompa-Loompas on it had to ride on them with what looked like the tubes that we saw earlier, except without the hole.

"What those Oompa-Loompas are riding on," a lifeguard that was passing us said, "are actually Wacky Wafers. Those slides too, as well as the tubes themselves, are also Wacky Wafers, except they're all coated with a special film to prevent the candy from getting dissolved by the lemonade and chipping. The name's Anthony, by the way."

"That's an interesting fact, sir, but could you happen to know where—?" Mike began, but was interrupted.

"The whereabouts of a certain German boy?" Anthony said. "No, but I have heard of him. You could say that the news is travelling rather fast around the factory."

"I'd imagine so," Veruca smirked. "Especially after seeing that huge trail of Wonka Bar wrappers that Augustus left!"

"Anyways," Anthony continued, "even though I don't know his whereabouts, I can take you kids to a ride to transfer you to where he might be."

"A ride?" Mike questioned. "Now?"

"This ride is also used as transportation to move quickly throughout the factory," Anthony explained. "I think you may also recognize the corridor that you need to get to it." He smiled at me.

"Ohh, I know what you're talking about now!" I exclaimed, snapping my fingers. "Thanks for the help, Anthony!"

"No problem!" Anthony said, walking back to his lifeguard tower as the sound of laughter and splashing surrounded us.

"I have an idea," Veruca suggested. "Why not go on the top of one of those large slide towers so we could get a better view? Maybe we could even spot Augustus while we're at it."

"That's a great idea, Veruca," I smiled. "Let's go, everyone."

We walked over to the nearest tower and began the long trek of climbing its stairs. Fortunately, we made it with hardly any delays, since there was no line present. However, once we reached the top, there was no sign of Augustus.

"Do you all have any boards?" the lifeguard asked us.

I snapped my fingers.

"Darn it, I forgot!" I exclaimed.

"Actually, we're not—!" Mike began, but Violet interrupted him.

"It's either this, or climbing down all the stairs," she whispered to him, pointing downwards.

"But it's so high!" Mike complained.

"So now in addition to roller coasters, you're also scared of heights?" Violet joked, jabbing his side with her elbow. "You're such a ham!"

Mike sighed.

"Fine, I'll take the slide," he said.

"You're lucky that I have these three boards next to me," the lifeguard told us. He pointed to three boards, colored green, pink, orange, and yellow, just like the tubes. "You'll also have to go down one at a time due to safety reasons."

"I'll go first," I volunteered, taking the bright yellow board from the lifeguard, putting it on the slide, and getting on my stomach. I waved. "See you all at the bottom!"

"See you, Charlie," Veruca blushed, waving at me.

"See you, Veruca," I waved, pushing my board down the lemonade slide. "Bye!"

As I approached the drop, I felt wind surrounding me. My hair blew around as my grin grew wider, and the slide sped up faster and faster. It was enclosed, but I could see why a board was required. I did a sharp turn to the left, then the right, then the left, and then down again! I was having the time of my life when I suddenly approached an area of the slide that looked like it was cut off! A message above me stated, "TILT YOUR BOARD UPWARDS TO BEAT THE JUMP!"

_Oh, now I definitely understand why a board is required for this!_ I thought to myself as I tilted the board upwards like the sign ordered. Sure enough, both me and my board shot upwards, and I cleared the jump with no problem.

I continued sliding extremely fast straight, then left, where it travelled through a room where both sides were made of glass, like a sort of an aquarium. Behind the glass, thousands of cute, tiny creatures with eyes above their heads, round noses, and two legs were swimming around in it. These creatures came in many different colors, but the most common ones were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, and purple. One of the more unique colors that I saw even included yellow, but with pink noses.

"Heh," I chuckled. "Those must be Nerds! Good ol' Wonka!"

I watched as some of the creatures swam towards a ladder that corresponded with their color. They used the ladder to climb out of the water, where they travelled through a series of chutes and plopped down into a box, where their eyes faded away and their legs fused with their bodies. These boxes came into two separate colors, each of them divided, but by far the most common one was pink and purple.

Speeding through the Nerds room, I braced myself for another steep drop down into a splash pool, where I exited it to wait for my friends.

"If you're curious," one adult Oompa-Loompa told me, "you can dry off instantaneously in the changing-rooms. There are special devices in there that function just like that!"

"Thank you, sir," I told him, walking towards the nearest changing-room. In the sides of the rooms, there were typical showers, as well as changing-areas, but towards the back of the room there were six machines that resembled large hair dryers with stools attached to them. Seat belts could also be seen to be attached to the stools. I sat down in one, fastened the seat belt, then pressed a red button. Immediately afterwards, there was an enormous gust of wind which, to me, sounded louder than a jet engine. A few seconds later, the noise stopped, and I was completely dry. With that, I exited the changing-room to wait for the rest of my friends at last.

A few minutes later, when we were all dried off, I led Veruca, Violet, and Mike towards a small door at the back of the Wacky Wafers Water Park, then opened it up and immediately turned left.

"Where are we going, de—er, Charlie?" Veruca asked me, blushing as if she was embarrassed.

"You'll find out in just a few minutes!" I smiled, winking at her. "This is one of my favorite corridors in the entire factory, where we're headed! But unfortunately, to get to it, we'll need to take a train!"

"A train?" Mike sighed. "How many transportation methods are inside this factory?"

"You'd be surprised," I chuckled. "Mr. Wonka is an eccentric, after all, so it'd make sense for his factory to be as well. And look, the wrapper trail continues!"

Mike looked down at his feet as he was running after me, and sure enough, there were Wonka Bar wrappers at his feet.

"Geez," Veruca chuckled. "Augustus sure gets around, doesn't he?"

"What we're heading to is a very deep location in the factory," I explained, "so that's why we need to take a train. Specifically, a maglev!"

"A maglev?" Mike exclaimed. "How on earth do you fit a maglev inside this place?"

"Well, if Mr. Wonka can fit two water parks in here, why not a maglev?" I remarked.

"Fair enough," Mike said, then we went on our way.

A few minutes later, we arrived at a round door that said, "MAGLEV STATION #2."

I opened it, and we saw a grey area that looked like a subway station. To the left and right of the door, about ten feet apart, a couple Oompa-Loompas were reading magazines on benches.

"The maglev should be arriving shortly," a feminine voice said through a PA. Sure enough, one minute later, the maglev pulled into the station, and we went inside it.

"How do we control this thing?" Mike said as everyone took a seat except me.

"You're mumbling, Mike," I smirked, walking towards the back of the maglev, where a small microphone sat on a podium in front of a seat. I sat down by the microphone and said, "We're all seated and ready to go! First stop, Bouncy Gelatin Way!"

""First stop, Bouncy Gelatin Way!" a feminine voice said through a PA in the maglev. "Everyone buckle your seatbelts! We'll arrive in about five minutes!"

I looked up at a display that was in the center of the maglev and said, "Look, everyone! That display shows our current speed."

We all looked at it and saw as it showed 100 MPH, then 110, then 120…"

"Aren't we going a little _too_ fast?" Veruca asked me, gripping my hand tightly.

"We have to if we want to get to our destination quicker," I explained. "I just hope that no one's using the other maglev at the moment."

"What other maglev?" Violet asked, looking at me with a concerned look on her face. "Please tell me you're joking."

"The one that goes the opposite direction on the same track as this one," I giggled, causing Veruca to grip my hand even tighter.

"You're telling me that we might have a collision, Charlie?" Veruca asked me.

"Well, the last few times that I've been with Mr. Wonka on this, we've always managed to avoid one," I responded. "Maybe this time will be the same. At least, I think it will."

We all looked, and the display now read, 340 MPH. Even Mike Teavee was gulping at this point.

"Charlie, are you sure—?" he said before I interrupted him.

"Yes, I'm sure," I reassured him. "I really do have a feeling that we'll be lucky this time. We'll be in our destination in about a minute anyways."

True to my word, sixty seconds later I heard the sounds of brakes, then the display slowly went down to 0 MPH. As soon as it stopped, the doors opened, and we got out.

"What the heck just happened?" panted Mike.

"If you liked that," I grinned, "we also have the Holiday Candy Train. That's quite a walk away, though, but who knows?"

I walked by one of the various round doors at the other end of the station, and everyone else followed me. It was fun leading the group for a change! Who knows what we'll encounter next? Only I do. That's the thrill of it all. It's like watching an intense horror movie with your family when you're the only one that's seen it. That's exactly how I felt right now. I felt just like how Mr. Wonka must've felt guiding us through our original tour. Above the door, like I mentioned in the maglev, the sign said, "BOUNCY GELATIN WAY."

"What we're about to go through," I explained, "is a corridor that I designed all by myself when I was just a preteen, which is just recently, in case you're curious, and I even helped some of the Oompa-Loompas build it! Isn't that neat?"

This door had a combination lock, and everyone peered at it as I mumbled, "Ninety-nine, forty-four, one hundred percent pure!"

The lock beeped, and we entered inside Bouncy Gelatin Way.

"Is it just me, or is the floor bouncy?" Mike said.

"It's not just you," I responded. "The floors and the ceiling of this entire corridor are made of synthetic gelatin! Even the doors are made of gelatin, but they're opaque. Isn't that neat?"

As we bounced down...well, Bouncy Gelatin Way, laughing along the way (except for Mike, of course, who simply kept a straight face), we passed several doors that said, "CAKE WALK", FUDGE FOREST", "COCONUT ICE CASTLE", and "DIRT DESERT."

"Let's stop here," I said, stopping in front of the Dirt Desert room. "The trail doesn't stop in front of the first three doors anyways."

"Another entrance to the Fudge Forest?" Mike questioned.

"Although I did design this corridor," I explained, "Mr. Wonka chose the rooms to go in it. It wouldn't surprise me if there's more than one entrance to it, considering the size of that place."

"What's 'Cake Walk'?" Violet asked me. "Like the dance?"

I knew that room well.

"No," I answered. "The Cake Walk room is designed with sort of like a track in mind, but it's all made of cake! It's really bouncy, but it's shock absorbent, so you only leave a footprint for about a second or two. Unfortunately we're running out of time, so we can't visit it right now. The trail of Wonka Bar wrappers also doesn't stop in front of that room, telling me that Augustus didn't visit it."

"Can we go inside the Coconut Ice Castle?" Veruca asked me.

"Although we don't have time right now," I responded, "the Holiday Candy Train does pass through it, so we may end up seeing it if we're lucky."

"Shouldn't it be Dirt _Dessert_?" Mike pointed out, looking at the sign on the door that read, "DIRT DESERT". "It's missing an _s_."

"No, it's Dirt Desert," I responded. "You'll see what I mean shortly."

Unlike most of the rooms in the factory, there was a button on the wall next to the door of the Dirt Desert room. I pressed it, and the door slid out of the way to reveal an oasis with purple candy soda fountains next to it along with palm trees, and there were even large pyramids made out of graham crackers in the distance, as well as cacti made out of spearmint, and even the occasional rock candy boulder.

The ceiling of this room was colored light blue, and it was littered with cotton candy clouds in order to imitate a sky.

"Mr. Wonka told me a lot about this room while he was constructing it," I told everyone. "The sand here is made out of vanilla cookie crumbs, so almost everything here is edible."

"Eek!" Veruca shrieked as she gripped my arm in shock. We all looked down and saw a brown, sentient snake made out of chocolate hissing angrily at Veruca.

"You must have stepped on it," I remarked. "These snakes won't hurt you, since they're only sentient candies, but I wouldn't advise stepping on them."

We stopped, and saw in the middle of the room an absolutely enormous Sphinx! There was a doorway in the middle of its paws. This Sphinx, however, was slightly different then an Egyptian one. It had the head of an Oompa-Loompa, but the body of a cat.

"This is the Sphinx," I told everyone. "While we can't go in it due to time constraints, I can tell you that it has the head of an Oompa-Loompa, and the body of Mr. Wonka's famous Cocoa Cats. It's also made out of graham crackers. Additionally, this Sphinx leads to the Food Pyramid, which houses a special treasure."

"What kind of treasure?" Violet asked.

"Perhaps you'll find that out another day," I replied. "The reason the Sphinx leads to the Food Pyramid is to help protect it from robbers. What's inside of the Food Pyramid is one of our newest products, and it'd be a disaster if someone with bad intentions got their hands on it!"

"Interesting," Mike said thoughtfully. "Are there any other rooms similar to the Dirt Desert in this place?"

"Well, we do have the _Dark_ Desert," I said. "It's like the Dirt Desert, but it's themed more after Halloween, and includes things such as...Egyptian zombie mummies!" I playfully jumped behind Veruca.

"Eek!" she exclaimed, then laughed once she realized that it was me. "Oh, Charlie!" she said, slapping me playfully on my back.

Suddenly, wind began to blow, and I immediately began to shout instructions at everyone.

"Quick, run to the oasis!" I ordered. "A sandstorm is about to start!"

Running as fast as we could, we made it to the oasis, shielding our mouths and eyes as the sandstorm began to brew.

"This sandstorm is made out of cotton candy!" I shouted as the wind brewed even harder. "And please, follow me for your own safety! You wouldn't want to fall in the Quickamel Quicksand now, would you?"

Then, without warning, the storm stopped, and I checked my surroundings to see if everyone was alright.

"Mike's here…" I said quietly to myself, looking at him. "Violet's here...wait, where's Veruca?"

"Over here!" a voice shouted.

We all looked—it was Veruca, and she was trapped in the Quickamel Quicksand! Immediately, we ran over by her in an attempt to free her.

"I tried to find you guys, but I couldn't see!" she shouted. "When the storm cleared, I found myself stuck in here!"

"Grab hold, Veruca!" I said, extending my hand outwards. Veruca reached for it, and we grabbed our hands together. "Help me pull!" I continued, talking to Violet and Mike. "On the count of three: one, two, pull!"

As soon as I said, "pull!", Violet and Mike pulled against my back, and Veruca was tossed through the air, causing her to land on my back once again.

"Um, a little help?" I said.

"Oops," Veruca chuckled nervously. "Sorry, Charlie."

As she got up, she helped me stand up as well, which I gratefully accepted. Staring straight into my eyes, Veruca told me, "Thank you so much for saving me!" Then she paused and said, "I love you, Charlie."

* * *

Mike giggled, but Violet elbowed him, prompting him to stay silent. I didn't know what to say. Having not even been the heir of the Wonka factory for a single decade, I was in shock. When I was poor, hardly anyone talked to me, let anyone claimed they loved me, so even if they did, I wouldn't know. I could only remain silent, my mouth open wide, as Veruca gripped my hand.

"I know what you're thinking," Veruca blushed. "You don't need to say anything."

"Let's...just move on to the next room, shall we?" I said, trying to break the awkward silence that had just fallen upon our group, prompting Veruca to giggle happily. "If my memory serves me correctly, we'll have just one more room left to visit in this corridor."

As we exited the Dirt Desert, true to my word, the trail of Wonka Bar wrappers didn't branch out like it usually did. Instead, it made a straight path to a door that said, "CHOCOLATE YULE LOG FLUME."

"A log flume?" Mike questioned. "How far has Augustus travelled through this factory? This is crazy!"

I pushed a button on the wall to open the door, and it slid out of the way, revealing a riding station made entirely out of solid chocolate bricks. The log flume carts were going on a never-ending chain throughout the ride, as there was no stopping to unload. Each of these carts had one single row of two seats, long enough that we could seat two in the front, and the other two in the back. Coincidentally, there was no room for Augustus Gloop, had he been here.

The ride operator told us that we could go, and together, the four of us walked to one of the logs. Me and Veruca sat in the front of the log, with Veruca on my lap, and Violet and Mike sat in the back, with Violet on his lap.

"Is this like a roller coaster?" Mike asked worriedly.

"You'll be just fine, Mike," Violet said, gripping Mike's hand. "You did just fine in the Rinky Dinks room, so you'll survive here!"

To the left and right of the seats, there were two metal bars, and I grabbed onto them. A few seconds later, we travelled through a hole in the wall, beginning our journey. Instead of water, we were floating on a steady stream of liquid chocolate.

"Log flumes sure are romantic, wouldn't you agree, Charlie?" Veruca blushed at me.

"Honestly, I wouldn't know," I told her. "I've never been in a romantic relationship before, so I don't know the feeling."

"Well then, you're about to find out!" she giggled as we made a turn into a small cave. Multiple LED lights allowed us to see what was ahead of us.

"We're going to see some very interesting things," I explained. "This is one of my favorite transportation methods in the entire factory, so I know a lot about what's to come."

After some time in the cave, we turned left, entering an area where water could be seen cutting up large slabs of rock candy. A robotic arm picked one up via suction, where it was then transferred to a waterjet cutter. With no problem at all, the slab got cut into half, then quarters, where they were then trimmed by the cutter in order to remove any rough pieces. Finally, the robotic arm picked it up once again, dropping the pieces onto a conveyor belt, sending them out of the room.

"This is the Rock Candy Refinery," I explained. "We also use a slight amount of abrasive to cut up the rock candy as well, as it helps the water to cut the slabs faster. Did you know that the water leaves the cutter at over three times the speed of sound?"

"That's impossible," Mike said.

"I can't hear you," I smirked. "You're mumbling again."

"Hehe," Veruca Salt giggled. "Good one, C-charlie...why is it getting c-cold?"

"Welcome to the Coconut Ice Castle!" I proclaimed, leaving Veruca in awe. The pink castle was nearly the size of the factory's main building, stretching almost two hundred feet tall, and the ground was made of solid vanilla ice cream. Tiny snowflakes made of shredded coconut twinkled down into this section of the ride, giving the chocolate in this part of the ride a whiter hue. The sky in this room had a sort of purple hue to it, and thousands of small lights imitating stars, as well as a shining aurora, provided light to this area. Additionally, the bridge leading to this castle was made of enormous popsicle sticks.

"It's beautiful…" Veruca gasped, her mouth open wide, unable to think of anything to say.

"Why are there train tracks close by here?" Mike pointed out as he stared at nearby train tracks made out of gingerbread.

"As I stated earlier, the Holiday Candy Train passes through here," I explained. "However, it travels through the castle itself, so if we end up riding it, you'll get a much better look at this room then we're seeing right now."

We made a left turn, passing by a hot spring that smelled like lemon-lime soda. There was steam coming off of it, and light underneath it was changing its color every few seconds. As we took a right turn, we noticed that candles surrounded it as well.

"This is just one of many hot springs in this room," I said. "The Oompa-Loompas, especially Sweet Koko, the current Oompa-Loompa Chief, love to use this room for therapeutic purposes."  
After making another turn, we floated through a small tunnel, then as we emerged, we realized that we were floating around the perimeter of a room with a green and white swirl design on the floor, and around two hundred slugs were sitting on round stools, coating tiny green candies with slime as they moved along a conveyor belt.

"This reminds me of the Nut Room," Veruca remarked, shivering ever so slightly.

"No, this is the Slime Candy Room," I said. "This is a prank candy. Due to the slimy properties, it's almost impossible to hold, but if you do eat one, your sweat glands will instead produce slime for over two hours, covering you in slime from head to toe!"

"Why the heck would anyone want that?" Mike said, but I only smiled at him.

"Right," Mike sighed. "I'm apparently mumbling. Why must you take after Mr. Wonka so much?"

"And adding to Veruca's question, the Nut Room was just recently redesigned," I continued. "Depending on where our adventure takes us, we may or may not end up visiting it later on."

A few minutes later, we entered a dark tunnel.

"Why is it suddenly so dark?" Mike questioned.

"So now you're suddenly scared of the dark?" Violet joked. "How many fears do you even have?"

"Speaking of fears, my favorite part is coming up," I smiled.

"What is it?" Veruca asked me.

"Well, as Mr. Wonka would say, the best kind of prize is a surprise!" I giggled, and Mike only sighed in response.

"You _really do_ take after him," he told me.

"Why thank you," I said jokingly. "Now, here it comes!"

Suddenly, a strobe light went off, then the area surrounding us went completely dark. A loud bang frightened everyone but me, and eerie music began to play. Next, a clickety-clackety sound was heard as we went up a lift. The log began to level out, and we could hear the sound of a coil tightening.

We looked, and a holographic projection of Mr. Ritchie was seen! His face was distorted into a Cheshire Cat-like smile as he grinned at us.

_What?_ I thought to myself. _This wasn't part of the ride! Where's the holographic projection of Mr. Wonka?!_

"Hahahaha!" the holographic Mr. Ritchie laughed. "Welcome, my helpless guests! It is my unfortunate pleasure to reveal that I have your precious guardian locked up deep inside an area of the factory that you'll never find! Have a great time in Minusland!"

The holographic Mr. Ritchie laughed so loud that the entire log began to shake. Fireballs exploded from all around the log, nearly scorching us. Aside from me, who let out a scream of eagerness, everyone else let out screams of terror as we plunged down a near-vertical drop.

"Oh, no!" Veruca gasped once we splashed down at the bottom. "I'm all covered in chocolate!"

"My spiky hair is all ruined!" Mike complained. "It took me so long to gel it up like that!"

"Don't worry," I said. "We'll get cleaned shortly."

We turned a corner, and found ourselves in a chamber that resembled a car wash, and strange little brushes and nozzles squirted us with strange liquids, along with a hot air dryer to dry us off.

"What was that we just went through?" Veruca asked me.

"That was the Hsawaknow," I answered.

"That doesn't sound like Japanese to me," Mike said. "Let me guess: that's that one contraption Augustus went through during our original hunt."

"Precisely!" I said. "That's Wonka Wash spelled backwards, by the way."

A few seconds later, we found ourselves in a station identical to the one at the beginning of the ride, and we all got out.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, getting the ride operator's attention. "Do you know anything about a holographic Mr. Ritchie playing instead of the evil Mr. Wonka?"

"Who's Mr. Ritchie?" the ride operator said. "But anyways, thanks for the tip. I'll send someone to get it checked out."

He then began speaking on a walkie-talkie we had as I guided my friends to two doors. The left said, "RECREATION CORRIDOR", and the right said, "NERDS CORRIDOR."

"Well, typically, if I was guiding you for fun," I said, "I'd go to the Recreation Corridor, but since we're on a time crunch, I say the Nerds corridor. The wrappers are in front of it anyways."

As I was opening the door to the Nerds Corridor, Mike had a quizzical expression on his face.

"He needs an entire _corridor_ just for Nerds?" Mike said, raising an eyebrow.

"It's not really that surprising to me," I answered him. "Mr. Wonka has invented over two hundred flavors of chocolate bars, so a corridor dedicated to Nerds wouldn't be a stretch, if you think about it."

"If Mr. Wonka has invented over two hundred flavors," Mike asked me, "then how come I only see four?"

"Those are the four _most popular_ flavors," I told him. "There are others, but they're more lesser known, like I was telling Veruca earlier. Now, let's check out some of these Nerds, shall we?"

We stopped as some of the wrappers ended in front of a door that said, "NEON NERDS."

We opened the door and were immediately greeted with the sound of 70's disco music. A disco ball was in the middle of the room, spinning round and round, and colorful rainbow lights were giving off a huge glow, and we needed to shield our eyes for a couple seconds in order to adjust so that we could see. Once we could, we saw what looked like the Nerds mascots on the boxes, but these ones were orange and light red, and all of them had either headphones on or were riding a yellow skateboard. Some of them wore yellow sunglasses, all of them comically oversized on their faces.

"I thought the mascot on the boxes was only an illustration," Mike remarked.

"I thought so too, actually," I said, "but I guess they're actually real. It doesn't look like Augustus is in here, so I guess we'll move to the next room. I can't wait to see what we'll find next!"

The next door that we passed said, "DWEEBS."

"Dweebs?" Violet asked out loud. "What are Dweebs, and why are they in the Nerds corridor?"

"If my memory serves me correctly," Mike said, "Dweebs are a sort of counterpart to Nerds. According to my research, Dweebs are larger than Nerds, yet they're also softer and chewier."

"Hm, that sounds interesting," I remarked. "Even though I've been learning with Mr. Wonka for quite a long time, he's never told me about these candies. Let's go see what's inside, shall we?"

I opened the door to the Dweebs room, and what I saw resembled a nursery. We saw large, sentient plump balls with arms, mouths, legs, and the like walking around. These balls came in the following colors: red, yellow, orange, and pink. Some orange Dweebs in this room wore a small, blue propeller hat on their heads, and they were playing with a yo-yo, while some of the yellow ones in here wore a green propeller hat with a purple propeller. They were playing with a yo-yo as well.

The red Dweebs' looks also varied. Some of them wore yellow sunglasses with blue frames, while others were shorter, plumper, and were wearing a blue hat on. However, some of the other orange Dweebs also had this look, except they had purple sunglasses. The pink Dweebs had a green hat on, similar to the red variants.

The Dweebs room itself had small Nerds crawling around in what looked like diapers, doing things like building with blocks, sucking on pacifiers, and other babyish activities. Towards the right side of the room, Dweebs were holding their Nerds babies and playing with them in cribs, which had mobiles above them with various Wonka candies instead of space ships, fish, suns, and the like.

The back of the Dweebs room had a brown door with a large window on it. This window had a screen on it, where we could feel another cool breeze blowing. We could also see sunlight, or at least what looked like it, peeping out through the screen in a bright ray.

As we walked through the room, we stealthily snuck around the Nerds babies in order to not disturb them, but unfortunately, while we were doing this, Mike's foot accidentally got caught on one of the babies' towers, causing it to fall down. As soon as we noticed this, we stopped, and the baby, a blue Nerd with a pacifier in its mouth, looked at us with tears in its eyes.

"Waaaa!" the Nerds baby cried. "Waaa! Waaa!"

"No no no no, don't cry!" Mike begged suddenly, putting the baby's tower back together. However, Mike's voice only caused the baby to cry louder.

"Waaa!" the baby Nerd cried. "Waaaa!"

Violet looked at Mike.

"That's not how you do it," she said.

She knelt down in front of the baby Nerd and said softly, "There, there. Everything will be alright, see? Mikey Boy didn't mean to knock your tower down."

The baby Nerd stopped crying, sniffled, then looked at Violet. Then, it jumped into her arms, snuggling her, prompting her to stand up.

"Thank you for calming my baby down," said a voice.

We looked, and it was a red Dweeb. However, this one looked different compared to the rest of them. She had long orange hair, and a blue dress on. The Dweeb took the Nerd from Violet, who then giggled happily. "My name's Emma. Emma P...Murph..."

She paused.

"Sorry, I always forget my last name!" she remarked. "Being a mother really does things to you! Ah, whatever. My husband knows it, so I'll go ask him."

"That's alright," I told her. "We're looking for a German boy named Augustus. Have you seen him?"

"A German boy?" Emma said out loud. "Not that I know of, although I have heard other Dweebs talking about him. He could be out in the playground."

She pointed to the door at the back of the room with the large window. We looked through it and saw a playground. Opening the door, we felt a breeze, undoubtedly the one we felt earlier, and looked around. There were yellow lights on the top of the room to imitate sunlight, and it was indeed a huge playground made entirely out of sturdy Wonka candies including Everlasting Gobstoppers, Kazoozles (a red rope similar to licorice with creamy filling in the center), and more. There were Nerds and Dweebs everywhere, but no sign of Augustus.

* * *

"Help!" screamed a feminine voice. "Help! Help!"

In the distance, over by the playground, we saw a yellow Dweeb. Similar to Emma, she had long orange hair, but hers was tied into two pigtails. She also had blue shorts on instead of a dress.

"What's wrong, ma'am?" I asked as we ran over.

"Oh, thanks heavens you're here!" she said gratefully. "Some creepy man in a black bowler hat took my precious baby!"

_Mr. Ritchie_! I thought.

"We'll help you find him," I assured her. "After all, we're looking for someone as well, so who knows? We might run into them both along the way."

"Oh, thank you!" the yellow Dweeb exclaimed, hugging me tightly. Her hug felt tight, yet soft, as if I was being cradled by the softest pillow in the world. However, it did not last long, as she released her grip on me and asked, "May I please come with you?"

"Sure, why not?" Violet said. "One extra group member wouldn't hurt, even if it's just temporary."

"My name's Madison, by the way," the yellow Dweeb said. "I apologize for not introducing myself earlier."

"It's alright," I said. "My name's Charlie, and these are my friends, Veruca, Violet, and Mike."

"It's nice to meet you all!" she said cheerfully.

"Now...let's go!" Violet cheered happily as we exited the Dweebs room together with Madison.

As expected, the trail of Wonka Bar wrappers continued, and stopped in front of a door that said, "NERDS HOT AND COOL."

"Hm," I thought to myself out loud. "I don't see how a baby could've opened a door like this, but maybe Augustus is inside. Let's check."

I opened the round door to the Nerds Hot and Cool room, and after a couple minutes of going down a straight hallway, we found ourselves at an interesting dilemma- a fork in the hallway. The left side had the word, "HOT" written above it, while the right side had the word, "COOL." The "Hot" corridor was also colored red, and the "Cool" corridor was colored blue. At the place where the two met, a small piece of wall jutting out forward to create said corridors, the left half was red, and the other half was blue.

"So, uh, how are we gonna split up?" Mike said.

"I think that me and Mike should take the "Cool" side, while Madison, Charlie, and Veruca can explore the "Hot" side," Violet suggested.

"Sounds good to me," I said. "Let's go, everyone."

~Mike's POV~

Violet and I continued trekking down the corridor, waving to Charlie and the others.

"If you find anything," Charlie said, "be sure to let us know! We'll meet up here back at the start once we're done checking!"

"Alright!" I responded, waving back to him and walking towards a rectangular blue door that had the word "COOL" on it written in an icicle-type font.

It certainly feels different having Charlie lead the group for a change. While it does take a lot of weight off my shoulders, I'm not used to being told what to do, or even expecting the unexpected, despite the kind of place that Mr. Wonka's factory is.

And to be honest, although I was giggling, I totally expected for Veruca to tell Charlie what she said in the Dirt Desert. They've just been so romantic throughout the tour that it was bound to happen. It's just that...I'm not used to really showing much emotion in public, much less feel something like affection towards anyone except my parents. Speaking of that, Violet seems to be crazy for me, with her constant teasing and all, and honestly, I'm not so sure about how to feel with that. One side is telling me to shrug it off, while the other side is giving me some strange emotion that I don't know how to describe in words…

Anyways, a couple minutes later, Violet and I stopped in front of the "Cool" door. To the right of it there was a sign that said:

_DID YOU KNOW?_

_"Nerds Hot and Cool" were first introduced to the public in 1998. While the "Hot" Nerds taste like cinnamon, the "Cool" Nerds were made to taste like wintergreen. Additionally, while the Hot Nerds are extremely hyper and fired up, the "Cool" Nerds are more laid back and chill._

"So kind of like me," I remarked.

"Don't deny it, Mike," Violet smiled at me. "You know just as well as I do that you get hyper and fired up while playing those video games of yours."

"No I don't," I denied.

Violet could only smile at me.

"Yeah you do," she said.

"Whatever you say," I shrugged as she opened the "Cool" door. By the door, on the insider of the room, there were coat hangers with various sized coats on them. The room was also extremely cool, no surprise there, and we could see light-blue Nerds wearing dark blue hats. There was snow made out of shredded coconut piled all over this room (and still falling down, as a matter of fact), and an AC was installed in the room, hidden high up in the ceiling, in order to imitate cold wintry wind. These Nerds could be seen using one of their legs to grab the 'snow', then press it against their body gently, turning it multiple times in order to create a snowball. Then, using as much force as they could, they would throw the snowball at an opposing Nerds team at the other end. Some of the other Nerds would even work together to build a snowball fort in order to protect themselves from the barrage, while the remaining ones would protect the fort, rush inside, then go back out again to fight, and perhaps even switch with their friends in order to give each other breaks.

"I don't see Augustus," I remarked, "or our missing baby. Come to think of it, I don't think a baby would know how to throw snowballs anyways."

"You've got a point," Violet said.

We took off both of our coats and placed them back on the hangers, then closed the door in order to meet up with the others.

~Veruca's POV~

Well, I did it. After four long years, I finally did it.

'I love you, Charlie.'

That one statement kept running through my mind ever since what happened in the Dirt Desert. All this time, although I loved him, and wasn't afraid to show it, I couldn't work up the courage to tell him those three words. Now, I did. It was all over, done with. And although I do wish that Charlie said it in return, I do understand why he didn't, even though I know his feelings towards me. I suppose being born in a poor family with hardly anyone else to talk to besides your family would really affect Charlie's personality, compared to me being born in a rich family, where we constantly have parties and people over. Come to think of it, until now, I never really thought about how differently we grew up, as well as how that might have affected the two of us.

"Charlie?" I asked him. "Were you embarrassed about what I told you in the Dirt Desert?"

"Not at all," he smiled at me as we approached a red rectangular door that had the word, "HOT" written on it in a fire-type font. "It's just that I was really shy, and didn't know what to say. You know how I am, Veruca."

"Yeah, I understand," I responded back. "And you know what? I apologize for the times where I might have forgotten about our different upbringings and put myself before you."

"Don't be," he said. "It's not wrong to place yourself before others."

"Yeah, I know that," I responded, "but, you know, my spoiled personality back then, and…"

"Veruca, you know that I love you just the way you are," Charlie said. "It's been that way for the past four years. Besides, you know just as well as I do that you've changed."

"Wait, you what—?" I began, but he only turned around, smiled at me, then turned back to face the door.

"Aw, what have we got here?" Madison said sweetly. "Two lovebirds! That reminds me of my first date with Norman...or was it Ethan? Ah, whatever! My husband knows, so I'll just ask him once we return!"

I chuckled at Madison's statement as Charlie opened the "Hot" door. To the right of it, I saw a placard that had facts about the Nerds on it, read it, then entered the room.

What I saw looked like a summer in the city. In the center of the room, there was a park, as well as a large tree, and tons of light red Nerds were playing on it. Surrounding the park were various roads, and next to them were even tall skyscrapers with LED lights. The sky was a bright blue with cotton candy clouds, and on one of the roads, there was even an ice cream truck, which a gigantic group of red Nerds children were crowding around. The Nerd inside the truck had a small ice cream cap on, and was handing out various flavors of Mr. Wonka's Never Melting Ice Cream, including chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and more.

"My baby isn't red," Madison said. "He's yellow, just like me, but with a pink nose."

"I saw some of those in the Nerds room while riding in the Wacky Wafers Water Park," I remarked, "but I doubt that any of them was him. Since he's a baby, it'd be really difficult to climb up those enormous tanks without any assistance."

"Oh yeah," Madison said. "He's just learning to crawl. He can't climb without my help."

"I wonder where he could possibly be," Charlie said, thinking out loud.

"Whew," I said, wiping my brow. "It sure is hot in here!"

"Of course it is," Charlie joked. "That's why it's called the 'Hot' room!"

"I know that!" I laughed. "Now, I think we should meet back up with Violet and Mike to explain our findings. Maybe they found something we didn't."

"Let's do this," Charlie smiled, gripping my hand as the three of us walked back to meet with Violet and Mike.

~Charlie's POV~

A couple minutes later, the five of us were back together.

"Did you find anything?" I asked Mike and Violet. Mike shook his head.

"Nothing," he said. "You?"

"Same," I responded. "We didn't find her baby, nor Augustus."

"What color is your baby, anyways?" Violet asked Madison.

"Yellow," Madison said. "Yellow with a pink nose."

"Well, that certainly eliminates this room," Mike said. "Let's continue our trek, everybody."

As we continued our walk down the Nerds corridor, we looked down at the wrappers by our feet. They kept going on for seemingly forever, then finally did a fork and turned at a door that said, "NERDS CEREAL."

"Mr. Wonka makes a Nerds cereal?" Mike questioned. "I never knew that. Let's see what's inside."

He opened the door to the Nerds Cereal room, and we saw an interesting sight. We were standing in front of a ramp, and as such, we climbed up it and waited to see what sight that we would encounter next.

We looked down, and a bar was there to prevent us from falling off. An enormous white cereal bowl, all of it filled up with gallons upon gallons of milk, was in the center of the room, and attached to the bowl was a diving board, as well as a ladder. Nerds colored purple, dark red, light red, and orange climbed up the ladder, then jumped down from the board into the bowl and swam around in the milk.

Additionally, a large pipe was connected to the right side of the bowl, and every couple of minutes, the hole in the pipe would completely empty, sending all the Nerds down the pipe, where it exited through a hole in the wall that presumably led to the packaging department. Then, another pipe to the left side of the bowl would refill the bowl with milk, continuing the process.

"I don't see any trace of him here, either," Mike remarked. "Something tells me that he might be in the next room. Who knows?"

As we exited the Nerds Cereal room, we looked down at the trail of wrappers once more. A few minutes later, we came to a room that said, "MUTANT GLOBS."

"Mutant Globs?" Violet said. "I wonder what those have to do with Nerds."

"Well, I guess we'll find out right now," I said, opening the door to the Mutant Globs room.

The Mutant Globs room was pitch-black, but we could see what was going on inside it. A line of pink Nerds was marching towards a vat containing yellow liquid with a robotic arm. The robotic arm would lift one of them up, dip them into the yellow liquid, then lift them back up. Once they were brought back up, they looked almost completely different. Because of the liquid, it looked like their eyes and bodies were drooping down. After they were dipped and brought back up again, each Mutant Glob walked slowly towards a small ladder at the other end of the room, where it would lead to a conveyor belt that went to the packaging department. As soon as they stepped on the conveyor belt, their eyes faded away, creating a drooping effect on their now round bodies, and their legs fused with their bodies.

"Well, I see a pink Nerd with a yellow nose," Madison said, "but I don't see a yellow Nerd with a pink nose."

"That's that, then," I said as we exited the Mutant Globs room.

"That room was scary, Charlie," Veruca told me, gripping on to my arm.

"It was just candy," I told her, smiling. "That's nothing to get frightened over!"

"I guess you're right," Veruca smiled back, giving a weak smile in return as we reached the next room, which said, "ADOPT A NERD."

"I don't know why Augustus would've gone in here," I said, "but I guess it shows to never underestimate a man with a hungry stomach. I wonder what he was looking for."

We entered the Adopt A Nerd room, and it looked like a small pet store. Nerds about the size of dolls were seen in large cages, smiling happily with their eyes, and walking around. Towards the back of this room, there was a desk, where an Oompa-Loompa clerk was working.

"Hey, Charlie!" the Oompa-Loompa greeted me, crossing his arms and bowing.

"I'm doing great, Jacob!" I replied, crossing my arms and bowing in the same manner.

"Are you here to shop?" Jacob asked. "Or is there something else that you need?"

"Well, we're looking for Augustus Gloop," I explained. "He's wandered off somewhere. Plus, Miss Madison here has lost her Nerd baby."

"Unfortunately," Jacob told me, "I haven't seen Augustus, and a normal Nerds baby isn't even close to this size. Sorry."

"That's alright," I said, and I turned my head to see Veruca Salt by one of the cages. She was looking at an orange Nerd, and it was snuggling against her arm.

"Well, it seems like that Nerd likes you!" Jacob said. "Why don't you buy it?"

"Don't you have enough pets already?" Mike Teavee asked.

"You see," Veruca explained, turning to Mike, "about a year and a half after the original tour, I gave all my previous pets up for adoption. I felt like I couldn't take care of them, as I needed time, but now that I've changed, I feel like I could give it another shot."

"Why not?" I smiled, petting the orange Nerd. It began to snuggle against me as well, and it made a purring sound that resembled a cat's. "It's settled, then."

I turned to Jacob.

"How much for the Nerd?" I asked him.

"Four Wacky Wafers," he said, prompting a bunch of confused glances. "Oh, you don't know? Wacky Wafers are the currency of Wonka's factory, replacing coins, and cocoa beans replace dollars. Here, I'll give you each ten to start with, and I'll even deduct the four from Veruca, so she gets ten as well."

"Thank you so much!" I said as Jacob gave us ten Wacky Wafers each.

"No problem," he said, walking over to the cage and giving the orange Nerd to Veruca. "You take care of it now," he said. "He doesn't require any food or water, but he does need love, so be sure to give him plenty."

"I will!" she smiled as the orange Nerd began to snuggle against her.

"What will you call him?" I asked.

"I call him Squishy!" smiled Veruca, "since he's really soft and squishy."

"I thought you were referencing the jellyfish from Finding Nemo," Violet said.

"One could see it like that," Veruca responded, "but it wasn't intentional."

Veruca hugged Squishy, and Squishy hugged her, as the five of us walked to another room. This door said, "NERDS ROPE WILD COASTER—ENTRANCE."

"Uh, I think that we should just skip this room," Mike said, hoping that we wouldn't notice. Violet gently grabbed his arm.

"Come on, Mr. Scaredy Pants," Violet said, dragging Mike into the room.

"I've never actually been so far away from the Dweebs room before," Madison admitted.

"Don't worry," I said encouragingly. "We'll find your baby soon."

"I sure hope so," she said as we looked around the room.

The Nerds Rope Wild Coaster room had a blue ceiling with white cotton candy clouds like a lot of others, but it featured Mr. Wonka's signature Swudge on the ground. Towards the center of the room was the coaster itself. It was enormously tall, and made entirely out of sturdy Nerds Rope. It looped, corkscrewed, and turned, and even went through a hole in the wall which led to goodness knows where. The ride operator, an elderly Oompa-Loompa that was balding, with thin white hair, was walking towards us.

"Welcome to the Nerds Rope Wild Coaster!" he proclaimed. "My name's Marvin, and I will be your ride operator for today!"

"Um, are you sure about this?" Mike said, beginning to sweat. "For example, I don't think a Nerd could fit in the car like that."

"Oh, that's no problem," Marvin said. "Smaller seat belts are installed in between the larger ones in order to fit Oompa-Loompas, so I suppose your little friend there could fit in it."

"Oh, come on!" Mike cried. "Why does Wonka have to be prepared for everything?"

"Beats me," Violet giggled, gripping Mike's hand and dragging him towards the Nerds Rope Wild Coaster.

We all entered the car, which was round like a bumper car. It was red, and had Mr. Wonka's signature Nerds scattered all over in various colors. At the back of the car, Mr. Wonka's signature curly "W" could be seen.

"What have I got myself into?" Mike shook. "This...this is not going to end well."

"Think positive, Mike!" Violet smiled as everyone got buckled in, including Squishy, who sat next to Veruca.

"Enjoy the ride!" Marvin smiled as the car started and began travelling upwards as Mike covered his eyes.

"Oh no," Mike sighed. "This, this, oh gosh—"

The car levelled out, causing Mike to open his eyes. It turned left, then went down a huge hill!

"AHHHH!" Mike Teavee screamed. "SAVE ME!"

As soon as it was done going down the hill, it did a sharp turn, then went up again via another Nerds Rope chain!

"Again?" sweated Mike. "Why?"

Meanwhile, Squishy could be seen tucked in his seatbelt, smiling and putting his arms up as much as he could.

"Dude, a _Nerd's_ braver than you," Violet smirked."Look at that."

"That's...kinda sad if you ask me," Veruca remarked.

Squishy made a sound that sounded like a high-pitched squeak, then low-pitched, and high-pitched once again, indicating 'yes.'

"Man, you just burned by a Nerd," Violet said, struggling to hold in laughter.

"Here's your everyday reminder that sentient candies are braver than a human being," Veruca smirked.

I chuckled, trying to hold in my laughter as much as possible. A few seconds later, we went down a hill, then did a loop! After that, we did a sharp turn through the hole in the wall. Inside this area, we went through a bright and colorful tunnel populated by animatronic Nerds characters, and we turned left, through another hole. Almost after we went through the hole, we went downwards, then turned again, coming to a stop by another ride operator. The area that we ended up in looked nearly identical to where we started. As we got off, our cart began moving through another hole in the wall, in order to go back to its original position.

We opened up the door to the exit, and we could see that we were in another corridor. However, something looked...different. One of the doors was open! It said, "EVERLASTING GOBSTOPPER ROOM."

"One of our two targets has got to be in here," I said, walking into the Everlasting Gobstopper Room.

The Everlasting Gobstopper Room resembled a family-fun arcade. Beeping, as well as loud sounds and blinking lights, could be heard coming from absolutely everywhere inside. We looked, and we could see giant pinball machines, as well as classic arcade machines, all over the room. A couple Oompa-Loompa children could even be seen playing there at the moment as well, and they were laughing and having fun. The back right of the room contained a life-size pinball machine using giant Everlasting Gobstoppers. There was a clear pipe towards the bottom of it to transfer the ball back to the top, and a pipe to the right contained a giant spring already holding an Everlasting Gobstopper, already to be launched.

There was a barrier to protect us from actually falling into the machine, and connected to the barrier were two grey panels, each holding one red button each: one to activate the left flipper, and one to activate the right flipper.

As we looked closer, we realized that everything in this room had to deal with Everlasting Gobstoppers in various ways. The Whac-A-Mole machines had Gobstoppers instead of moles, and the smaller pinball machines used Everlasting Gobstoppers as well. There was an Everlasting Gobstopper ball pit that used that candy instead of regular balls. Close by it, there was a play tube filled with Everlasting Gonstoppers, and even the Skee-ball machines used Everlasting Gobstoppers. There were even crane machines with giant Gobstoppers, and Gobstopper plushies, as prizes. These plushies had various faces on them. The first plushy was red, and the Everlasting Gobstopper looked like it was smirking, but its eyes were half closed, and two teeth were stuck out of the bottom of its mouth. It had a large nose, and there was an orange variant of this plush inside the machines as well. The second face was green, with a large nose as well. Its eyes were nearly closed just like the first one, but its mouth was open, revealing orange and purple rings. The third face was purple, and looked almost identical to the green one,except it had green and orange rings instead. Yet another variant of the orange Gobstopper had its mouth open, revealing yellow and red rings. Finally, another Gobstopper plushy that had its mouth open was red, revealing green and yellow rings with red in the center, as well as a variant with green and purple, with red in the center. Other prizes in the arcade machines included Mr. Wonka's Everlasting Gobstopper Pops, which were red Everlasting Gobstoppers on a stick.

Towards the back left of the room, there were human-sized animatronics of the various Everlasting Gobstopper plushies. They were talking, moving, and even singing various songs.

"Alright, we got a special performance!" one of them said. "Here we go!"

Then, they began singing together, loud and clear:

_"Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka..._  
_The Amazing Chocolatier._  
_Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka..._  
_Everybody give a cheer!"_

"Nope, I'm out!" Mike said as he covered his ears in annoyance. "Lalalala!"

"Is it over yet?" Violet asked, also covering her ears.

"Nope," Veruca smirked, listening to the song with me.

_"He's modest, clever, and so smart,_  
_He barely can restrain it._  
_With so much generosity,_  
_There is no way to contain it..._  
_To contain...to contain...to contain...to contain!"_

"Please tell me," Mike sighed. "I hate that stupid song. This entire day has literally been dedicated to torturing me. By the way...lalalala, I can't hear you!"

_"Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka..._  
_He's the one that you're about to meet._  
_Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka..._  
_He's a genius who just can't be beat._  
_The magician and the chocolate wiz..._  
_He's the best darn guy who ever lived._  
_Willy Wonka here he is!"_

Right after the last lyrics were sung, an animatronic Willy Wonka began emerging from a hole behind the Gobstoppers and bowing. With that, everyone uncovered their ears.

"Thank gosh that's over," Mike said.

"Welcome to the Everlasting Gobstopper room!" an attendant Oompa-Loompa said, walking up to us. "Is there anything that I can do for you?"

"We're looking for a certain German boy," I explained, "as well as…"

"This?" the attendant said, guiding us five over to...a yellow baby Nerd with a pink nose!

"I caught him crawling around here," the attendant explained. "I tried calling the Nerds room, but was told you went off elsewhere."

"Thank you so much, everyone!" Madison said thankfully. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

She hugged each and every one of us, including the attendant, as she grabbed her precious baby.

"How will you find your way back?" I asked.

"Oh, I'll find a way," she grinned. "Thank you so much for your help!"

We all waved bye to Madison as she exited the Everlasting Gobstopper room.

"We have coins," suggested Violet once that was over with, patting her pocket which contained the Wacky Wafers, "so even if we don't have a long time, perhaps we could at least try one to two games each."

"Hey, that's not a bad idea," Mike Teavee grinned.

And so we did. I tried out one of the Skee-ball machines, Mike tried one of the skill cranes, Violet tried the life-size pinball machine, and Veruca, together with Squishy, went in the play tube together. However, this did not last long, as about five minutes later, the lot of us gathered our things together and exited the room. Coincidentally, the door to this next room, merely just a few feet from the Everlasting Gobstopper room, was stained with chocolate handprints and had a pile of Wonka Bar wrappers in front of it. It read, "BLACKBERRY SAUSAGES."

**Author's note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Here's some trivia for you: Mutant Globs were an unreleased Halloween version of Nerds. The label on the box says, "Once a year, on Halloween night, those innocent little, crunchy, sweet Nerds slowly turn into MUTANT GLOBS!" "Hot and Cool" Nerds were also a real candy; just look it up. The Nerds Rope Wild Coaster was based off of a Flash game.**

**Last but not least, credit for the cotton candy sandstorm and Quickamel Quicksand (both in the Dirt Desert) and the Everlasting Gobstopper Room goes to MysteriousMaker1185! (Welcome back, by the way!)**

**What was your favorite part of this chapter? Let us know in your review, and stay tuned for Chapter 11! :)**

**P.S. Please check out "Kind at Heart", which is Gs33022's reboot of "Next in Line"! :D**


	11. Guns N' Zombies

Chapter 11 - Guns N' Zombies

**Author's note: Hello, dear readers! I'm back with Chapter 11 of our collab. Hopefully everyone's been doing well amidst the COVID-19 pandemic so far.**

**I have received some unfortunate news from both Sonny April and Gs33022. You may remember dragonserpent18, one of the authors who contributed most to the CatCF fandom. His account was hacked and all of his stories were deleted. For those of you who thought he deleted his account on his own terms, the truth is, he did NOT, and whoever hacked into his account is responsible. I miss reading his stories on this site, and I'm sure at least some of you do as well. On the plus side, Gs33022 will reintroduce the Sour Dragons room in "Kind at Heart" (his reboot of Next in Line) in honor of him. He will also be upgrading the Chocolate Yule log flume in "Kind at Heart" as well, so stay tuned for that! Now, I'll respond to your reviews.  
**

**XXCandyLoverXX, I'm glad you enjoyed the inclusion of the Chocolate Yule log flume and the maglev! They will be upgraded in "Kind At Heart", as I already mentioned in the author's note. By the way, when you said BlackBerry sausages, I couldn't stop laughing! Sausages made from phones? Yum! I can taste the silicon, glass, plastic, and lithium already. XD**

**JOHNHAMMOND1993, the group will take a ride on the Holiday Candy Train at a later point in the story. Who knows, someone might find their key at the train's destination! *hint hint wink wink* As for your true/false question, to be honest, I'm not sure! :( There are lots of attractions and real factories _like_ it, but after lots of Googling, I can't seem to find one that exactly matches your criteria. Sorry!  
**

**DontCallMeGussie, I didn't come up with the Nerds' names; Gs33022 did. I saw the pic of the Blackberry Sausages room on DeviantArt, and you'll find out how it influenced my description of the room.  
**

**COVID-19, sorry, but you'll have to wait 11 years! Remember, this story takes place at the beginning of 2009. Now, on with the story! :)**

**(Note: this chapter was written by me.)**

~Mike's POV~

"Yikes, that door could use a _serious_ cleaning!" I exclaimed as we stood at the entrance to the Blackberry Sausages room. "I only know of one person that would leave chocolate stains like that, but we'll need to catch him red-handed to be sure."

"There's only one way to find out," Violet said as she turned the handle, not caring in the slightest if her fingers touched chocolate. The large, round door silently swung open, revealing a cavernous room with several rows of tables. Dozens of purple tubes descended from the ceiling towards each row of tables, and an army of Oompa-Loompas were manipulating sausage casings made from blackberries, another secret miracle recipe that Mr. Wonka invented long ago. With precise timing, the tubes filled up each casing with slightly-mashed blackberries, and the Oompa-Loompas quickly pinched each casing shut and twisted it to link the sausages to one another in a very long chain.

"Hey! I see Augustus over there!" Veruca pointed towards the largest person in the room, who was gorging himself on a plateful of blackberry sausages. Sure enough, as we walked closer, the German ginger was definitely there, and Violet was _fuming_, almost to the point where steam would be coming out of her nostrils.

"Oh, hello," Augustus turned around to face us. "I vas just trying zome of zeze plackberry zauzages! Vu should haffe zome!"

"Augustus," Violet snarled, "what the _hell_ were you thinking? You can't just wander off like that and leave garbage everywhere!"

"I'm zorry," Augustus apologized. "Vile on mein vay to zee Memorapilia Room, I zaw ein Oomba-Loomba eading one of zeze plackberry zauzages, und I chust couldn't rezist zee tembtazion any longer, zo I valked out und zecretly folloved him through ein vole punch of corridors undil I kot here. I do Habologise for littering, py zee vay. I chust took ein vole punch of Vonka Bars from ein vending machine to haffe as ein snack, und Heffendually I kot here. Zee Oomba-Loombas zaid zey'd clean zee door ven ve leaffe, but in ein vay I don't vant to leaffe pecauze zeze plackberry zauzages zure are tasty!"

"Please, don't _ever_ wander off like that again!" Violet scolded him. "Why didn't you just stay in place?"

I let out a loud sigh. "Seriously, it took a maglev, a water slide, a log flume, a lost baby, a roller coaster, and an adoption to find you!" I briefly cast a sideways glance towards that gigantic orange Nerd, Squishy, who was comfortably nestled under Veruca's arm.

"And a love confession," Veruca added, sweetly smiling at Charlie.

_...and that_, I thought. _It's obvious that I like Violet, and she likes me back, but I'm shocked that I haven't confessed yet! I guess after we find the final key or at a later point during our mission, I might make my move._

I briefly shrugged my shoulders. "Anyway, we have Augustus now, so we can resume our mission. We still have to find four more keys before sunset!"

"Right!" Violet cheered, giving me a high-five. "Off we go."

As we exited the room, I noticed that a group of about ten Oompa-Loompas had gathered just outside the door with an orange janitorial cart, and they began to clean the door with soapy mops, rags, and squeegees. Another ten Oompa-Loompas were following the trail of candy wrappers and other garbage that Augustus left behind during his solitary trek to the Blackberry Sausages room, throwing all the waste into a large, black garbage cart as they walked along. I briefly nodded in their direction before turning around and leading my friends in the opposite direction, and the floor was spotless from here on.

"I wonder where my key will be located," I heard Veruca mention from behind. Her Nerd companion made a low-pitched sound and shook his head. "He said he doesn't know."

"None of us do," I responded.

"Hold on, what the heck are those?" Violet asked, pointing towards a large, round door that was labeled: "OOMPAS".

"Grandpa Joe told me about these a while ago," Charlie said. "They're one of Mr. Wonka's older candies. It's funny how similar the name sounds to _Oompa-Loompa_, though."

Violet frowned. "Yeah, I guess it's funny in a way," she said flatly. "Mike, all clear to enter."

"Roger that!" I replied.

As soon as the door smoothly swung open, my vision was blocked by a thick, white fog that spilled out of the room, causing all of us to wave our hands to fan it away from our faces. Through the fog, I could barely make out the Oompa-Loompas as they scurried around machines like an army of squirrels, and they were wearing the strangest outfits I had ever seen! They had orange masks with white eyebrows and curly green hair, as well as white overalls, brown shirts with white-and-brown striped collars, white gloves, white-and-brown striped socks, and brown shoes with some kind of pom-pom at the toe.

I could barely hear anything over the sounds of the machinery, but what I _did_ notice were a series of long, narrow conveyor belts that branched out of one of the machines like the spindly legs of a spider. On these conveyors, a never-ending stream of disk-shaped candies made their way towards the factory's main packaging department. They came in all sorts of colors, and thanks to a small sticker attached to one of the conveyor belts, I found out that beneath the candy shell was a half-peanut butter, half-chocolate filling. However, while we searched for a key, I realized that some of the other Oompa candies were different. These ones, according to signs nearby, were fruit-flavored, coming in green apple, cherry, lemon, orange, grape, and strawberry.

"That's interesting," Charlie spoke. "They have two totally different versions of this candy, it seems."

"Maybe Mr. Wonka introduced the fruit-flavored ones later and decided not to construct a separate room for them?" Veruca hypothesized.

"Well, haven't found anything here," Violet said a few minutes later as she burst out of the dense fog. "We will find one of them very soon, though, I'm _certain_ of that!"

Upon exiting the room, I sighed with relief since I could now see a lot more clearly. As we walked further down the corridor, we passed by a couple of locked doors before we reached the end, where a pair of steel double doors impeded our forwards journey. There was no handle; just a glowing, pulsating green button positioned at the right side of the door frame. A glowing, purple label just above the door read: "'FOR YOUR ENEMIES' CORRIDOR".

"Ooh, it's like a spaceship!" Violet exclaimed upon noticing the button on the wall. "Let's go in!" She was about to push the button, but I grabbed her arm.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "It leads to the _For Your Enemies_ corridor. Weren't we Mr. Wonka's enemies four years ago? What if it's some sort of trap?"

"Not necessarily," Violet calmly responded. "Sure, he didn't think we were the _ideal_ kids back then, but he's long forgiven our actions. Besides, it was our actions, our misdeeds, that contributed to our initial eliminations."

"But that does _not_ explain the obvious fact that the Oompa-Loompas have written their songs beforehand!" I retorted. "Remember when we were in the Music Conservatory, and we found the sheet music for our elimination songs?"

Veruca gasped, and I could tell she was going to have a flashback...

* * *

~Veruca's POV~

_Inside the Music Conservatory, rows upon rows of short music stands stretched as far as I could see. As Charlie and I walked past each row, I noticed that the sheet music on the stands included "Wonka's Welcome Song", "Augustus Gloop", and "Violet Beauregarde". I stopped by one of the stands to take a closer look._

_"So the Oompa-Loompas' songs were rehearsed after all!" I said in astonishment as I flipped through the songs. "They'd better not have written a song about me!" Sure enough, to my dismay, the next page of sheet music was titled "Veruca Salt". I was seething in anger as I read the lyrics:_

_"Veruca Salt, the little brute,_

_Has just gone down the garbage chute._

_And she will meet as she descends,_

_A rather different set of friends."_

_"I can't believe this!" I cried. I ripped the paper in half and then into quarters before throwing the remains into the air, and I watched as they fluttered to the ground like snowflakes. The only other song that remained was "Mike Teavee". There was no song for Charlie._

_Just then, I heard Charlie gasp from halfway across the room. "Veruca, you have your own song too!" he exclaimed._

_"Yes, I know!" I screamed in anger, my shrill voice echoing all around the room. "Mike Teavee had his own song too, but not you! Mr. Wonka really did want you as his heir! Now find that bloody key and let's get out of here!"_

_"You don't need to shout," Charlie said. "Besides, I haven't found any sign of it."_

_"THEN LET'S GO!" I hollered, sprinting towards the door. Charlie followed me from behind, and I practically slammed the door as we left the Music Conservatory._

_"Ugh, the nerve of those stupid Oompa-Loompas, writing a song like that about me!" I growled. "What a disgrace! They were clearly anticipating my own downfall! I hate them, I hate this factory, and I want to go home RIGHT NOW!"_

_"Veruca, that's not going to happen any time soon," Charlie said. "I know you're upset, but you must calm down otherwise we can't go on any further."_

_"Fine," I groaned before mouthing, "Mr. Wonka needs to wake up to reality and fire those workers of his."_

* * *

~Mike's POV~

Veruca looked around the corridor in confusion, rapidly blinking her eyes as she did so, and she took a breath once the flashback was over.

"Are you okay, Veruca?" Charlie asked her, holding her upper arm so that she wouldn't fall to the floor.

"Yeah, I'm...fine," Veruca sighed. "I guess. Now I'm starting to act like Mr. Wonka, suffering from all these flashbacks."

I gasped in surprise. "You're only _starting_ to have flashbacks, Veruca? I've been having nightmares about that awful taffy puller for weeks on end after the tour!"

"Well, at least thanks to Charlie, I've been spared from tumbling down the chute!" Veruca screeched. "Otherwise, I _would_ be having persistent flashbacks like you three!"

"Enough!" Charlie said as assertively as he possibly could, which to be honest, wasn't all that much.

"Thanks, Charlie," Violet said now that the air was still. "Let's go." She pushed the button, and the double doors slid open like an elevator, revealing the corridor ahead of us.

"IT'S A TRAP!" a voice suddenly shouted, causing Charlie, Veruca, and Augustus to jump in fright. Standing right in front of us was Mr. Ritchie, but his appearance was somewhat transparent, like that of a ghost.

"Hmph, another hologram created in a pitiful attempt to scare us," I said dryly. "We can just pass right through him, I'm sure."

"Not so fast," the holographic Mr. Ritchie said. "There are four keys left. Just remember, you have to find them _before_ sunset arrives, otherwise your precious guardians will be gone for all eternity! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!" And with that, he vanished.

"Old news, Herr Ritchie," Augustus said, shaking his head. "Put if zee canties in zis corritor are really for your Henemies, I vonder if I schould chust maype take ein preak undil ve're out of here zo ve don't zuffer from any Hadfferze Heffects." We stared at him, dumbfounded and surprised at what he had just said.

"_Reeeeaaaaaally now..._" Violet said with a hint of sarcasm as we began to move along. "_You_, of all people, not wanting to give any of these candies a chance. Why do I have a hard time believing that?"

I was about to reply, but one of the doors suddenly caught my eye. The glowing orange label above it read: "CANDY ARMORY".

"Ooh, this must be a new version of the Candy Weapons room!" I was feeling more excited about visiting a new room than I ever have in my life, even more so than the original Candy Weapons room! "If we have weapons in the For Your Enemies corridor, now's my chance to demonstrate my Call of Duty skills in real life!"

Violet looked at me skeptically. "Uh, Mike, have you ever fired a real gun before?"

"Of course I've fired a gun before," I quickly replied. "That is, if my dad's Glock 19 counts."

Violet narrowed her eyes. "Michael Cameron Teavee, handguns are for sissies. Shotguns are where it's at."

"Daddy's got plenty of those!" Veruca chimed. "He used to go hunting for all sorts of game, big and small, right up until I was born."

"Come on, let's boogie!" I shouted. "I'm excited to see what this room is all about." Without further hesitation, I opened the door, and as we entered the Candy Armory, what I saw took my breath away.

Unlike the circular Candy Weapons room, the Candy Armory was long and rectangular. In fact, the area was so big that a football field could easily fit inside, with plenty of room to spare! In front of us were shooting ranges for guns as well as for archery. Directly to my left was a wooden shelf with noise-cancelling headsets, which we would obviously need in order to save our hearing from gunfire, as well as full-body armor. On the far-left side of the room, dozens upon dozens of assault rifles hung on the wall, including AK-47's, M4A1 carbines, and AR-15's, to name just a few. Below the guns were cases full of magazines, which contained the weapons' respective ammo. Looking at the brightly-colored bullets inside each mag, which came in 5.56mm, 7.62mm, and 9mm sizes, I was certain that they were made from rock candy with a small amount of either gunpowder or Exploding Candy inside. Beside the rack of guns was another rack that contained optional accessories for each gun, including suppressors, red dot sights, holographic sights, tactical scopes, laser sights, larger magazines, different grips, and various kinds of stocks. Beyond that was anther rack with all sorts of single- and double-barrel shotguns, both modern and vintage, along with their ammo and various accessories.

Past that was a rack of sniper rifles, including the Barrett MRAD and Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle. They came with all sorts of scopes, including an infrared one. There was even an extra-long shooting range designed just for those guns.

Nearby, there was also a smaller rack that stored various handguns, along with their respective types of ammo.

The center of the room was completely open to give us a clear view of the firing/archery range, so I led everyone towards the right-hand side, where other types of weapons called themselves home. There was a rack with archery equipment, including bows with licorice strings and spearmint arrows. Next to those, a glass display table showcased swords and shields that were made from colorful rock candy. There was a row of cannons which used weapon-grade Gobstoppers and Exploding Candy (much like the ones we saw during our first ride on the Great Glass Elevator four years ago, inside the Exploding Candy Testing Room). Finally, there were bulletproof glass cases that contained Exploding Candy grenades and artillery shells.

"This place is _amazing_!" I grinned once we got our lay of the land. "More than likely, my key is located in the shooting range, so we'd better gear up at once."

"Roger that!" Violet responded, giving me a fist bump.

We all darted towards the gear, donning our noise-cancelling headsets, full-body bulletproof suits, helmets, and gloves.

"Alright, choose your weapons!" I called out as we rushed towards the racks of guns, except for Veruca who wanted to use a bow and arrow, and Squishy, who decided to watch from the sidelines. I snatched one of the M4A1 carbines, since it was my favorite gun to use in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. I quickly outfitted it with a red dot sight, foregrip, stock, laser, and lengthened barrel. Charlie grabbed an AK-47, Violet took one of the sniper rifles, and Augustus grabbed a Winchester shotgun.

"Ready, guys?" a nearby Oompa-Loompa asked us once we took our positions at the shooting ranges. Clicking sounds were heard as we disengaged the safeties on our guns, and I saw Veruca loading an arrow onto her bow. I watched as a series of targets appeared a few hundred feet away from our current position. The room suddenly fell dead silent as we aimed our weapons, not taking a single breath. Peering through my M4A1's red dot sight, I lined up the little dot with the bull's eye of my first target. "FIRE!"

The unmistakable sounds of gunfire rattled through the room as bullets and arrows flew down the range, and I watched as my gun obliterated the target in front of me, as well as watching the empty bullet casings being ejected out the side. As soon as the target was destroyed, another one appeared in a different location, and I fired again, sending a stream of deadly bullets in its direction. The M4A1 thumped against my body like a jackhammer several times a second as I held down the trigger, and before long, I had to reload another magazine into the gun before continuing my target-shooting spree.

Much to my dismay, we were told to ceasefire about ten minutes later. We begrudgingly put down our weapons.

"You did great, everyone!" the Oompa-Loompa said. "Splendid job!"

"Aww, I vas chust getding schtarded!" Augustus whined. "Zis vas mein first time firing ein schotgun, und I really Henchoyed it!"

"Well, sorry, but all good things must to an end," Violet sighed. "Did any keys drop down from those targets? There were none for me." Augustus, Charlie, Veruca, and I shook our heads.

"That sure was fun, though, wasn't it?!" Veruca exclaimed, giving Charlie a high-five. "The last time I used a bow and arrow was at a summer camp I went to when I was younger."

"We've got _plenty_ more of those," the Oompa-Loompa reassured her. "In fact, an archery range and a paintball arena were added to the Recreation Corridor not long ago as well!"

"Ooh, guys, we gotta play some paintball once all this is over!" Violet said. "_Only_ when our mission is complete, though."

"Thank you very much!" Charlie said to the Oompa-Loompa. "What's your name, by the way?"

"My name is Matt," the Oompa-Loompa replied.

"Nice to meet you," Veruca said. "I hope to see you again!"

"Please, do come back sometime!" Matt exclaimed. "Good bye, everyone, and good luck with your mission!"

"Danke!" Augustus replied, and I promptly led everyone out of the Candy Armory.

"That was quite an experience," Violet said to me, taking my hand as she did so. "Hey, wait, what's this over here?" she suddenly asked, pointing at an adjacent door: "CANDY ARMORY - VEHICLES".

I rolled my eyes. "Well, what kinds of vehicles do you normally see in the military? Chances are that at least some of them will be in here. Who knows?"

I turned the vault-like handle to open the door, and I was immediately greeted by the sight of not one, but _two_ full-fledged tanks! Since these were in a candy factory and not out on the battlefield, Mr. Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas clearly had no hesitations with painting them in all colors of the rainbow. As we walked past the massive tanks, I realized that we had actually entered an underground hangar of sorts; since there were full-sized chocolate replicas of fighter jets, and there was even a replica of the Wright Flyer, the very first powered aircraft to take to the skies back in 1903. A massive garage door dominated the back wall of the hangar, because those vehicles needed a way to get into the hangar in the first place. Despite the amazing sights, no key was to be found.

"I guess we're moving on," Violet said in disappointment as we exited the room. "I thought your key would have been somewhere in the armory, Mike. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" I asked her. "It's not in there, so we'll just have to look elsewhere! I thought you were supposed to be the winner here, Violet!"

"Oh, this shift in attitude now, huh?" Violet responded, crossing her arms.

"We've been here before, Violet," I told her. "You're a champion with karate and gum-chewing, and I'm a champion with online video games. We each have our own individual strengths, so there."

"Fine," Violet said.

Before long, we reached the next door, which was labeled: "HORDE O'ZOMBIE CHEWS".

"What are these?" Charlie wondered. "Do they summon zombies?"

"I don't like sompies," Augustus said with a worried look on his face. "I'm staying pehind."

"Me too," Veruca said. "Squishy's with me, too."

"That leaves the three of us," I said. "Let's go." I opened the vault-like door, and Violet and Charlie followed me inside.

This room was quite dark, except for a clear tank in the center that was filled with luminescent green fluid. Oompa-Loompas wearing green diving suits were swimming around the tank, collecting tiny green cubes in their gloved hands before coming up to the surface and depositing them onto a conveyor belt. Beside the conveyor belt, there was a sign that read:

_These candies are made to be used against your enemies. They are best used on Halloween, but can be used at any time of the year. They are non-digestible, which means that like gum, you do have to discard them, preferably inside a garbage can, but the ground also works provided you throw them into the garbage eventually, due to obvious sanitary and environmental concerns. Once thrown onto the ground or in the garbage, a horde of zombies will burst out of the ground and go after your enemy, before disappearing in thirty seconds. Warning, the Horde O'Zombie Chews aren't to be swallowed under ANY circumstances, unless you want the candy to directly affect you instead. You don't want to join the undead now, do you?_

"Well, who's gonna try one?" I wondered. Violet raised her hand first.

"Definitely me!" she replied eagerly. "At least I know not to swallow gum, so I'm certain these won't turn _me_ into a zombie." She snatched one from the conveyor belt and popped it into her mouth. "Yum! It tastes like lime!" Violet commented. "Nice and sour...although it's starting to lose its flavor already."

"Already?" I asked, perplexed that Mr. Wonka would make a product that only lasts for a few seconds. "Aren't his hard candies and varieties of gum supposed to last for years?"

"This is a candy for your enemies," Violet reminded him, "so in order to use it for its intended purpose, you have to spit it out ASAP." She removed the candy from her mouth with her left hand, and threw it into a nearby garbage can. Suddenly, the floor began to shake, and a trio of growling, shrieking zombies appeared to burst out of the ground. The zombies began to walk out of the room with an unsteady gait, and earsplitting screams were heard a second later. They had found Augustus, Veruca, and Squishy!

"NEIN! Vere's mein gun?!" Augustus hollered as he and Veruca began to run away from the zombies. Violet was killing herself laughing while all of this was going on. Charlie ran outside to watch the action unfold, and I just stood in place, smirking as I listened to Augustus' and Veruca's screams and the zombies' growling.

"Well," Violet said, "we may as well just head on out, since the zombies are still chasing Augustus and Veruca around."

Several seconds later, the growls subsided, and the zombies collapsed to the floor before vanishing into thin air. Veruca, Squishy, and Augustus sprinted towards us with looks of unbridled terror on their faces. Augustus stopped with his hand over his heart, breathing heavily, and Veruca tackled Charlie to the ground like a football player.

"Why didn't you do anything to help me?" Veruca asked Charlie as she quickly got off of him. "I was running for my life while those zombies went after me and Augustus, and all you did was stand there and watch!"

Charlie took a breath and replied, "It's no different than what Mr. Wonka did back in 2005. He idly watched Augustus, Violet, and Mike during their respective eliminations, as well as during your near-elimination in the Nut Sorting Room. Besides, we're not kids anymore. It's okay to cause some mischief. Life would be boring without it!"

"Now we're talking, Chuck," Violet said, smiling at Charlie as we journeyed further down the For Your Enemies corridor.

**Author's note: How's that for another long chapter? I hope you enjoyed it! A few things to point out here: Veruca's flashback scene was pretty much copied and pasted from my original story, "Where All the Bad Nuts Go", so if it seemed oddly familiar to you, that's why. Second, Mike's middle name, Cameron, was one that both Gs33022 and I coincidentally came up with. Cameron sounds a little like "camera", so you could think of it as mic, camera, TV. It goes together well, don't you think? And third, the chapter's title, Guns N' Zombies, was a play on words of the rock band "Guns N' Roses".  
**

**Please feel free to review and suggest more rooms you'd like to see in the "For Your Enemies" corridor, and stay tuned for more!**


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